After that day .... i would go to office and since things were new , will take an e-book and start learning.
And i had come to the concluclusion--whaterever be the things happening around me i just cant change them, so let me atleast try to make them better.
Thats when i started learning things relevant to my work...lots and lots of it and now i did not care if i was nirmala or nitha cause it didnt matter.
I was learning something no matter who i was, then came in the task to do a transistion document .
A document- well i was not very interested but still gave it a best shot. Appreciations came in from everywhere not to nirmala but Nitha.....then i realised hardwork works....
So started learning more, had a knowledge transfer from my collegue and then the i had my chance.
Solved a production issue on the clients server.....that was they day.
My co-ordinator decided to introduce me as nitha to the client. So my identity was restored..........
Things changed slowly but surely.....now im having a better time at office. Made new friends and have a good time at my hostel. Its fun -its different. But what ever it be home is anytime better.
Home sweet home..............................
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Kasakai Mumbai (Hello Mumbai)
19 Decemember 2005
Well , there i was standing outside my apartment,in the cold, at 4.00am waiting for an indica to take me to a place i never wanted to go.................
4.00am ticked away to 4.30am and i was already half frozen. My mobile was ringing again.....
(shit i need to change this ring tone ....). It was the cab driver
Memsab kahan pe ho aap(mam where are u??)
Using my broken hindi i make him understand where im standing and after 15 minutes he picks me up.
And to my surprise i had a co-traveller.
It was another person from my company who was going to bombay and he was actually doing a favour by dropping me in bombay....(too much for those great talks by my director about taking care of everything).
I have always heard that the mumbai pune route is very scenic and a must see. Since my onward was in the night i couldnt get to see anything. Not that this time i was looking forward to it..............
It was preety chilling and the car was cozy.We travelled in silence.
But despite my mood i seemed to enjoy the scenic beauty, believe me it is beautiful-- very beautiful.
And there are tunnels which were carved out of those hills and driving through them was a very refreshing feel.I was enjoying the journey not realising what awaited me.
7:30 am - Honk....honk....... now comes the reality, have reached mumbai and what better sign than the traffic jam.
Checked into the guest house freshened up and was on my way to meet my manager.
9:30am enterd the same old Economic industrial zone.....nothing much had change(what am i expecting? that the place turn clean and non dusty?....mmmm next to impossible ).
I meet up with my manager, he briefs me on my job profile and asks a team member to give me a more detailed information.....15 minutes later- he hands me a CV ... jus read this and be familiar with the profile.
The CV read NIRMALA DAS.
why would in need to be familiar with this profile??? whats happening here?
I asked to talk to the manager, he promtly replies. Im sorry, but this was the CV that we had forwarded to our client and we want you to continue with this name, But i assure you that we will change it in a month or so??
Oh ! my god what was happening to my life. Now im not even the person who iam. What will i do? Many many docs were given to me and my team mate rupesh to study. Then we realized we had a client interview that evening.
My first glance at the CV. PeopleSoft sysadmin 4 yrs exp ...
What ??? Oh no im new to this field ... i dont know anything how was i going to pose a 4yrs exp.....
God why are u playing these games with me ??
We had the call, my coordinator was smart enough to not let me talk and handle the client. Atlast, it was over.
It was 10:30 Pm i returned to the guesthouse .But the questions just kept ringing in my mind and haunting me.
Why was i brought here? jus because they nedded a girl?
why should i be some one else?
now anything i do wont matter cause im not myself anymore?
Why is this happening to me?
I jus looked at the celing it was blank and so was what was ahead of me.........
Well , there i was standing outside my apartment,in the cold, at 4.00am waiting for an indica to take me to a place i never wanted to go.................
4.00am ticked away to 4.30am and i was already half frozen. My mobile was ringing again.....
(shit i need to change this ring tone ....). It was the cab driver
Memsab kahan pe ho aap(mam where are u??)
Using my broken hindi i make him understand where im standing and after 15 minutes he picks me up.
And to my surprise i had a co-traveller.
It was another person from my company who was going to bombay and he was actually doing a favour by dropping me in bombay....(too much for those great talks by my director about taking care of everything).
I have always heard that the mumbai pune route is very scenic and a must see. Since my onward was in the night i couldnt get to see anything. Not that this time i was looking forward to it..............
It was preety chilling and the car was cozy.We travelled in silence.
But despite my mood i seemed to enjoy the scenic beauty, believe me it is beautiful-- very beautiful.
And there are tunnels which were carved out of those hills and driving through them was a very refreshing feel.I was enjoying the journey not realising what awaited me.
7:30 am - Honk....honk....... now comes the reality, have reached mumbai and what better sign than the traffic jam.
Checked into the guest house freshened up and was on my way to meet my manager.
9:30am enterd the same old Economic industrial zone.....nothing much had change(what am i expecting? that the place turn clean and non dusty?....mmmm next to impossible ).
I meet up with my manager, he briefs me on my job profile and asks a team member to give me a more detailed information.....15 minutes later- he hands me a CV ... jus read this and be familiar with the profile.
The CV read NIRMALA DAS.
why would in need to be familiar with this profile??? whats happening here?
I asked to talk to the manager, he promtly replies. Im sorry, but this was the CV that we had forwarded to our client and we want you to continue with this name, But i assure you that we will change it in a month or so??
Oh ! my god what was happening to my life. Now im not even the person who iam. What will i do? Many many docs were given to me and my team mate rupesh to study. Then we realized we had a client interview that evening.
My first glance at the CV. PeopleSoft sysadmin 4 yrs exp ...
What ??? Oh no im new to this field ... i dont know anything how was i going to pose a 4yrs exp.....
God why are u playing these games with me ??
We had the call, my coordinator was smart enough to not let me talk and handle the client. Atlast, it was over.
It was 10:30 Pm i returned to the guesthouse .But the questions just kept ringing in my mind and haunting me.
Why was i brought here? jus because they nedded a girl?
why should i be some one else?
now anything i do wont matter cause im not myself anymore?
Why is this happening to me?
I jus looked at the celing it was blank and so was what was ahead of me.........
Monday, January 23, 2006
Bye Bye......Pune (Episode 2)
Wham my bad luck had hit me again and this time a little too hard. Just when i was thinking im settling down and getting used to the place, a phone call turned everything topsy turvy.
It was 18 th Dec 2005 (yes a sunday again). Whats with sunday and my bad luck i don't understand ???
We got up late . Our House owner had come in the morning to get my signature for the insurance guys.
Officially only 3 people were allowed to stay in the flat but as usual we being great rebles had 1 more person extra and unfortunately the previous night my friend 's guy stayed over. So when uncle came in we scrambled to our posistions -that is the guy in the bathroom and one girl under the bed............
So uncle came got his work done and left. We were relieved.We had our breakfast and were chatting around....
Har gadi badal rahi hai roopu zindighi.........a song from kal ho na ho (how ironic)....it was my mobile ringing.
I picked it up
Manager(Man): Hello vanitha, this is sanjeeb here?
me: hello . who?
Man: Sanjeeb.
Me : oh yah sanjeeb.
man: is this a good time to speak to u ?
(if only i had known what he was about to say ...... then no time would have been good to speak to me)
me: yah sanjeeb, tell me.
Man: We have a requirement in our client proj, a new york client and we want to send u to the project.
It is pretty urgent and we want u to move to mumbai
(all the sweet talk as if he is sending me to NY)
me: !!!!!! (Oh no not again :-( )
me: sanjeeb but i jus got settled here
Man: and its preety urgent and we want u to trave to mumbai tonite
me:(this guy is jus not listening to me. Oh shit . Tonight????)
me: im not sure sanjeeb. cause it wont be possible to relocate so quickly
Man: no we will take care of all the travel and everything no problems about that.
me: im not sure
Man: i will ask fauzan (my project delivery director) to call u
Man: thank u . bye. tc
Oh my god ......not again not to that stuffy crowded place. It jus gets me too home sick.
I didn't want to go back to mumbai
Har gadi badal rahi hai roopu zindighi.....(now i know what it meant)
i picked up the call. To be more brief he just made sure i had no other option- but to go. Made sure my travel and my accommodation are arranged and was very considerate (huh......) to allow me to travel the next day morning 4.00am.
So that was the end of it , i was to move back to mumbai and i couldn't jus believe it.I had to pack my bags.
After another round of calling and complaining to all my friends, i had started to actually pack my bags. After all i guess one must move on with life............ :-(
It was 18 th Dec 2005 (yes a sunday again). Whats with sunday and my bad luck i don't understand ???
We got up late . Our House owner had come in the morning to get my signature for the insurance guys.
Officially only 3 people were allowed to stay in the flat but as usual we being great rebles had 1 more person extra and unfortunately the previous night my friend 's guy stayed over. So when uncle came in we scrambled to our posistions -that is the guy in the bathroom and one girl under the bed............
So uncle came got his work done and left. We were relieved.We had our breakfast and were chatting around....
Har gadi badal rahi hai roopu zindighi.........a song from kal ho na ho (how ironic)....it was my mobile ringing.
I picked it up
Manager(Man): Hello vanitha, this is sanjeeb here?
me: hello . who?
Man: Sanjeeb.
Me : oh yah sanjeeb.
man: is this a good time to speak to u ?
(if only i had known what he was about to say ...... then no time would have been good to speak to me)
me: yah sanjeeb, tell me.
Man: We have a requirement in our client proj, a new york client and we want to send u to the project.
It is pretty urgent and we want u to move to mumbai
(all the sweet talk as if he is sending me to NY)
me: !!!!!! (Oh no not again :-( )
me: sanjeeb but i jus got settled here
Man: and its preety urgent and we want u to trave to mumbai tonite
me:(this guy is jus not listening to me. Oh shit . Tonight????)
me: im not sure sanjeeb. cause it wont be possible to relocate so quickly
Man: no we will take care of all the travel and everything no problems about that.
me: im not sure
Man: i will ask fauzan (my project delivery director) to call u
Man: thank u . bye. tc
Oh my god ......not again not to that stuffy crowded place. It jus gets me too home sick.
I didn't want to go back to mumbai
Har gadi badal rahi hai roopu zindighi.....(now i know what it meant)
i picked up the call. To be more brief he just made sure i had no other option- but to go. Made sure my travel and my accommodation are arranged and was very considerate (huh......) to allow me to travel the next day morning 4.00am.
So that was the end of it , i was to move back to mumbai and i couldn't jus believe it.I had to pack my bags.
After another round of calling and complaining to all my friends, i had started to actually pack my bags. After all i guess one must move on with life............ :-(
Sunday, January 22, 2006
House on Fire ... Pune(Episode 1)
Guess my luck follows where ever I go. The bus reached pune at 2.00 AM.
We(Me and my collegues....3 cursed souls) had to wait outside our Pune office till 4.00 AM to get the guest house caretaker to pick us from office.
The guy was so heated up , that as soon as he came in he jus took his frustration out on us (poor guy....Guess we must have disturbed his sleep. Hee....Heee...Hee :-) ).
We reached the guest house carrying out our heavy luggages. By this time I was cursing my mom for packing everything under the sun lest her poor child has to go searching for them in an unknow , new place.
21 days of training, well, it jus felt like I was back to college. 7 of us in our training batch most of them were what u will call studs....Stuck to their books ,assignments and work.
So I was missing company to explore the new place.
So , a not so bad 21 days jus passed by. By this time I had fallen in love with pune, a much cleaner place than mumbai . Less crowd and hence more breathing space so I was more than elated when my mangers decide to keep me in Pune.
Yipeeee........ Guess my bad luck had run away from me............
Found a good apartment to stay , shared it with three lovely girls.
They were so nice and very friendly that I jus stopped feeling home sick.
We started to cook at home....were having fun watching late night movies and another friend of mine from chennai was also in pune so could explore the place around with him.
We even had a trek trip to lonavala and khandala . That was a different expecerience all together a day filled with fun, trek and sweat.
When i thought everything around me was running well and fine. My first encounter with bad luck ....after a long time.
It was 11th Dec 2005 and everyone had left home for their work (yes, it was a sunday. but my roomies work on sundays). I was in blissful sleep. Dreaming about having a great south india dinner for the night , cause it was my turn to cook this time.
I smelt some thing burning...... On no, had i fried the potatoes too much , i ran to switch off the stove ......... i got up with a jolt ..... thank god it was just a dream Or was it ? Snifff ..... Snifff..... i could still smell something burning.
Oh my god !!!!
The bathroom was on fire.......Someone had left the immersion rod switched on (thanks to the load shedding in pune..... it caught fire after the power came in at 9:00 am, rightly when all my roomies had left).
And my Hindi was soooooooooooo good that not a single person understood what i was trying to say. The aunty next door was all smiling and offering me morning coffee when i wanted to tell her that my house was burning up.
Guess after 5 minutes she understood that something was wrong......and im sure it was because i had a ghostly expression on my face and failed to let her talk anything.
All i kept saying was .......Ghar me Aghe lagi . Bachhaaoo. (Means house on fire . Help). She never understood what i wanted to say thanks to my accent.
Was trying to call the fire department and then realized my BPL sim does not allow me to call 3 digit number until i switch to emergency mode.
I was in no position to explore my mobile to find the option to switch to emergency mode. I was literally pleading someone to call for the fire engine.
We broke the window of my bathroom , and there i saw -my roomie's washing machine entering into sati --- right in front of my eyes.
Slowly the fire consumed everything and my house was burning up with all its might.........
Oh God what do i Do?????? How do i answer my roomie's ?????
Then came two of my roomie's . but still the one who owned the washing machine was not there. I was a little relieved.
Poured water tried to bring down the fire...........fought with it for half an hour and atlast the god of agni gave up.
We still couldnt enter the house cause it was all filled with smoke.
And jus like in the movies.........ding ding ding ding ding........the fire engine comes in to finish up the story.....
Well we were then living in a burnt up house praying that our owner would repaint it one day......Insurance procedures,police complaints etc,etc,etc.......we were the talk of the apartment .
We felt everyone was talkin about us when we came down from our flat.
And our owner said he would not paint until he got the insurance claim...... Our world had turned black and dark-literally and even otherwise.
when i thought everything was settling down and i was about to meet my good luck around the corner..........
Wham ......something hit me hard and then i knew my bad luck would never leave me ..............
We(Me and my collegues....3 cursed souls) had to wait outside our Pune office till 4.00 AM to get the guest house caretaker to pick us from office.
The guy was so heated up , that as soon as he came in he jus took his frustration out on us (poor guy....Guess we must have disturbed his sleep. Hee....Heee...Hee :-) ).
We reached the guest house carrying out our heavy luggages. By this time I was cursing my mom for packing everything under the sun lest her poor child has to go searching for them in an unknow , new place.
21 days of training, well, it jus felt like I was back to college. 7 of us in our training batch most of them were what u will call studs....Stuck to their books ,assignments and work.
So I was missing company to explore the new place.
So , a not so bad 21 days jus passed by. By this time I had fallen in love with pune, a much cleaner place than mumbai . Less crowd and hence more breathing space so I was more than elated when my mangers decide to keep me in Pune.
Yipeeee........ Guess my bad luck had run away from me............
Found a good apartment to stay , shared it with three lovely girls.
They were so nice and very friendly that I jus stopped feeling home sick.
We started to cook at home....were having fun watching late night movies and another friend of mine from chennai was also in pune so could explore the place around with him.
We even had a trek trip to lonavala and khandala . That was a different expecerience all together a day filled with fun, trek and sweat.
When i thought everything around me was running well and fine. My first encounter with bad luck ....after a long time.
It was 11th Dec 2005 and everyone had left home for their work (yes, it was a sunday. but my roomies work on sundays). I was in blissful sleep. Dreaming about having a great south india dinner for the night , cause it was my turn to cook this time.
I smelt some thing burning...... On no, had i fried the potatoes too much , i ran to switch off the stove ......... i got up with a jolt ..... thank god it was just a dream Or was it ? Snifff ..... Snifff..... i could still smell something burning.
Oh my god !!!!
The bathroom was on fire.......Someone had left the immersion rod switched on (thanks to the load shedding in pune..... it caught fire after the power came in at 9:00 am, rightly when all my roomies had left).
And my Hindi was soooooooooooo good that not a single person understood what i was trying to say. The aunty next door was all smiling and offering me morning coffee when i wanted to tell her that my house was burning up.
Guess after 5 minutes she understood that something was wrong......and im sure it was because i had a ghostly expression on my face and failed to let her talk anything.
All i kept saying was .......Ghar me Aghe lagi . Bachhaaoo. (Means house on fire . Help). She never understood what i wanted to say thanks to my accent.
Was trying to call the fire department and then realized my BPL sim does not allow me to call 3 digit number until i switch to emergency mode.
I was in no position to explore my mobile to find the option to switch to emergency mode. I was literally pleading someone to call for the fire engine.
We broke the window of my bathroom , and there i saw -my roomie's washing machine entering into sati --- right in front of my eyes.
Slowly the fire consumed everything and my house was burning up with all its might.........
Oh God what do i Do?????? How do i answer my roomie's ?????
Then came two of my roomie's . but still the one who owned the washing machine was not there. I was a little relieved.
Poured water tried to bring down the fire...........fought with it for half an hour and atlast the god of agni gave up.
We still couldnt enter the house cause it was all filled with smoke.
And jus like in the movies.........ding ding ding ding ding........the fire engine comes in to finish up the story.....
Well we were then living in a burnt up house praying that our owner would repaint it one day......Insurance procedures,police complaints etc,etc,etc.......we were the talk of the apartment .
We felt everyone was talkin about us when we came down from our flat.
And our owner said he would not paint until he got the insurance claim...... Our world had turned black and dark-literally and even otherwise.
when i thought everything was settling down and i was about to meet my good luck around the corner..........
Wham ......something hit me hard and then i knew my bad luck would never leave me ..............
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Home Sweet Home...............
I never realized that being away from home could be so difficult. I started from chennai on 14 nov 2006 with all the enthusiasm cause it was the first time im left home to live by myself.
Great dreams, great expectations and my first air bourne journey, started from the domestic terminal at 5:30 .I never realized chennai could look so beautiful at the crack of dawn.
I could breath the fresh air of freedom (not that I didn't have that at home), but u know its a different deal when you are all by urself .
Reached mumbai at 7:45 and jus stepped out of the airport at santacruz. lokku,looku ,looku (im jus coughing) ..............so much for my "fresh" air of freedom.
If this was somekind of a hint to what would be following then - I didn't catch it.
Took an auto and entered into this economic industrial zone ........Well believe me it was tooooooooo economically built . Guess their budget was very low that they even thought its better to keep the drain open.
Have never felt so stuffed up , no fresh air anywhere.......How do these people live here?????
Forgot to add - I had to wait outside the economic zone for 2 hours and once i got the permission had to drag my baggage for 2kms inside.
The Air conditioning of the office was a welcome relief.But still the place was filled up with people and was u know ,stuffy.
Usual HR formalities and then came the big blow.....I had to leave to pune the same night (for some stupid training).
After inquiring here and there and everywhere got myself a ticket to pune. After a bad lunch and long boaring presentations we checked into the guest house for freshening up.
One thing was clear I jus didn't know anything about mumbai. To catch a bus at 9.00 pm I took a taxi at 8:30pm . In chennai it would have given me a cushion time of 15 minutes, alas I never knew about the mumbai traffic.
Was caught in an automobile catastrophe and I knew even god would not be able to save me from such a mess.
At 9:15 reached my boarding point jus to find out I had missed my bus.......(jus the right kind of topping to end a really bad day).
So had to wait till 10:30 pm to take my next bus. But guess my bad luck had not ceased yet , cause the bus came in at 11:30 pm and I boarded the bus half asleep (I woke up at 4 to catch the 5:30 flight) . I was on my way to pune and didn't realize it would be a different ball game all together .
Great dreams, great expectations and my first air bourne journey, started from the domestic terminal at 5:30 .I never realized chennai could look so beautiful at the crack of dawn.
I could breath the fresh air of freedom (not that I didn't have that at home), but u know its a different deal when you are all by urself .
Reached mumbai at 7:45 and jus stepped out of the airport at santacruz. lokku,looku ,looku (im jus coughing) ..............so much for my "fresh" air of freedom.
If this was somekind of a hint to what would be following then - I didn't catch it.
Took an auto and entered into this economic industrial zone ........Well believe me it was tooooooooo economically built . Guess their budget was very low that they even thought its better to keep the drain open.
Have never felt so stuffed up , no fresh air anywhere.......How do these people live here?????
Forgot to add - I had to wait outside the economic zone for 2 hours and once i got the permission had to drag my baggage for 2kms inside.
The Air conditioning of the office was a welcome relief.But still the place was filled up with people and was u know ,stuffy.
Usual HR formalities and then came the big blow.....I had to leave to pune the same night (for some stupid training).
After inquiring here and there and everywhere got myself a ticket to pune. After a bad lunch and long boaring presentations we checked into the guest house for freshening up.
One thing was clear I jus didn't know anything about mumbai. To catch a bus at 9.00 pm I took a taxi at 8:30pm . In chennai it would have given me a cushion time of 15 minutes, alas I never knew about the mumbai traffic.
Was caught in an automobile catastrophe and I knew even god would not be able to save me from such a mess.
At 9:15 reached my boarding point jus to find out I had missed my bus.......(jus the right kind of topping to end a really bad day).
So had to wait till 10:30 pm to take my next bus. But guess my bad luck had not ceased yet , cause the bus came in at 11:30 pm and I boarded the bus half asleep (I woke up at 4 to catch the 5:30 flight) . I was on my way to pune and didn't realize it would be a different ball game all together .
Friday, January 20, 2006
Well atlast
Well atlast -after all the thinking , I have joined the party.
My own blog. Some how without a blog of my own felt left behind in the internet world.
With all the people you know ,having a blog , and taking about their blog , you could feel like u jus jumped in from mars .
And the toughest part of creating ur own blog is choosing the name. I spent hours on the thinking about a name.
I remembered a book that changed my outlook on life completely - ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach . There is a messiah in the book who teaches the author the realities(illusions???) of life.
so Kudos to the messiah.....Mi-messiah here i come.
My own blog. Some how without a blog of my own felt left behind in the internet world.
With all the people you know ,having a blog , and taking about their blog , you could feel like u jus jumped in from mars .
And the toughest part of creating ur own blog is choosing the name. I spent hours on the thinking about a name.
I remembered a book that changed my outlook on life completely - ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach . There is a messiah in the book who teaches the author the realities(illusions???) of life.
so Kudos to the messiah.....Mi-messiah here i come.
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