The world I live in

Gearing up for another rotten mood day, I was in for 2 pleasant surprises. 1. My colleagues - Anitha and Deepthi - were so concerned that I was on a diet and not taking care of myself. Their concern really touched. And no, I'm not on a diet. I'm just tired and exhausted and drained for reasons I came to know thanks to a babycentre.co.uk mailer. Mood swings and exhaustion are part of this phase of my pregnancy. I'm glad that nothing is 'wrong' with me. 2. Jeethy turned up at the library and helped me get a lot of books rearranged and shelved. A thoughtful gesture from her end also included getting me a box of salted raw mangoes and mango pickle. Yummy! :)

Venue for the band was Food Court (FC) 2. Could hear a few songs on my walk to the FC. Jitters again. I reached there in time to hear the introduction to judges as well as know the judging criteria. Attitude on stage was one of them. Now how does one do that while playing a keyboard? Oh well! I'd leave that to fellow band members. We were no. 6 in the list and each performance before ours made me think I shouldn't go up there. YANTRA (Yet Another Night To Rock Away) performing I was right. I messed up the first song's scale. After that, I went into this auto pilot mode and just played. It didn't sound the way I wanted it to. But hey! it's not for lack of trying to get the blessed organisers to give us a slot to practice which wasn't after midnight or trying to practice with no sound. One of the lead singers was low. And it's because me his song got messed up. How does one explain that and the fact that not a single other band member made it to the sound che...

First reaction was panic when I came to know we'd be travelling by the Volvo to Mysore. No amount of pleading helped to let me take a non-Volvo bus to Mysore. Besides this inital bad start, I looked forward to playing Throwball. A week before travelling to Mysore had me practicing throwball on the courts in the evenings and getting roped into being a part of the Music band and Mad-Ads group. Before leaving Mangalore Campus On the bus The journey to Mysore was as I thought it might be. The bus that was to pick us up arrived late. Slight headache due to the closed space. Threw up during the journey. Plus a road block just to make sure we were truly the last team to arrive on the Infy Mysore campus. Dinner was wasn't great. After which, went to the room and gave my roomie (Jyothsna Patro) a head start to using the amenities in the room. 11:00 PM at the Reception Block, Infosys Campus, Mysore The Ladies of the team Next day had me groaning because I didn't want to wake up...

Won the throwball event. Participated almost full time on courts for basketball. Backup for the lady player for the Team A in Volley. Nice to be on winning teams for a change. Got selected for Samavesh. And that was a big surprise since I thought there were better players this time. With the end of Synergy came the Red Devils team party. Did something really stupid. Accepted a bottoms-up challenge of drinking rum on a nearly empty stomach. Had to endure head spinning for about an hour and half. Never again. But I had fun :)

Amrith & I have zeroed in on one place in Mangalore. It's a flat at Urwa Stores in Golden Empire. A 2-BHK in a 1200 sq.ft area on the 3rd floor. If all goes well, we both have a place for ourselves which we can finally call our own. The owner comes this Thur and hopefully works on getting the documents required for the sale. Besides this the only other happening was the BEF Get-together at Pallkhi's Roof Top. Had a pretty good time there with the other BEF's units. An initial welcome drink and we started with a game of identifying the members of various departments. Each department's members were asked to be seated together. After they completed their identification process, their papers were handed over to another department to be corrected. We (E&R) got HR's sheets and ours was given over to CCD. We ranked second in the game. We also had to speak about the department who's paper we were correcting. For hungry souls like me the starters that were served...

Thanuja's snaps have long evaded my grasp. Here's the most recent one. We celebrated her birthday a few days late. Some idiot at the office switched off the fridge in which we'd stored her Mocha Birthday Cake. Come Monday and the thing stinks rotted. Had to order for the cake once more. VSN (short for Suryanarayana V) is my new boss (since Dec 2006). Don't have much of a rapport with him currently. Not sure if I want to build one up with him either. Ashwini was the last addition to the group. Very quiet lady most of the time.

Got the e-book version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a few days before I got the proper book copy in hand. Thanks to a colleague I can now read the book during all those odd and snatched bits of time. I've reached the portion about Harry, Ron and Hermione reaching Hogwarts. Decided to take a break, complete some work and blog a bit too :) Monday evening I discovered that my diet didn't let me lose any weight. I hadn't gained any either. Still weighing 79 kgs on the Dr. K's weighing scale. Getting the book on Monday evening did help me get a good start on the final story. Tuesday, read the book very little. Wednesday, the day I had to undergo Cross Culture Sensitivity training. Eating food with a fork and knife has never attracted me. I discovered why. It felt as uncomfortable as it looked. Had a trip down 'GUILT' lane since I had to eat paneer, rice and a yummy chocolate pastry as a part of the training. Was able to avoid bread and butter. This morning...

This statement was made just as I got of the local bus with another Infoscion. It reminded me of my kindergarten days. My class teacher said I talk too much. It also was a neat comment on my progress card. The only addition this time was: You talk too much for a librarian. :)

I haven't typed in anything for so long as I had just enuff time to read and look at the pics. At work, life's been pretty hectic after the vacation. Mumbai trip was so-so. All 3 of us had an attack of loose motions. Joel's recovering slowly. He's abt 75% back to normal self. Didn't go around much since Joel wasn't able to adjust much to place. He loved travelling in the locals out there. On the flight back, something about the air hostess's butt tickled him. He kept whacking each hostess's butt everytime they walked passed our aisle seat. The one benefit we all had was meeting all the relatives. The next trip to Mumbai can be delayed for a very long time. Back in Mangalore, the weather has lost its chill. One fair closed. And Karavali Utsav has begun. Fabindia's come to town. 2 malls and regular events are making people in Mangalore spend. Exams coming up. College Fests and School Days happening in plenty. Rumors of bundhs and strikes keep coming an...

Finally got this photograph from HR after a long wait and a few reminders. This was taken after the big bash we had for celebrating MInfy 11 and Infy 25 at the Convention Centre (T.M.A Pai) in September 2006. That's Anshu, me, Mukesh Pancholi, Shads guy, Rahul Vaidya, Navaneeth and Pavana. Mukesh and Rahul were contestants for the first Indian Idol. Man! it's been 3 months since I last fit into those jeans. I need to lose those extra inches I gained FAST!

The Rangoli at the entrance to lifts One of the 2 exhibits The yummy lunch

Devendra Rithesh had a swell time dressed up as Devendra. He was the colorful attraction of the day. Never seen a chap so enthu as him to get painted and stuffed as he was that day. Minfy sure has got a lovely person here. Jeethy, me and Girish We were part of the welcome committee. Jeethy's one of the 2 people from my dept. The other is Thanu who's on maternity leave. Waiting for her to get back to work. Would love to see her daugher too :) Usha, Sangeetha, Divya A few more colleagues and a friend. These 3 ladies make playing throwball interesting. Breaks from work with them send me back with a refreshed mind and attitude.

Meet Veena B Smiling - worried - determined - J2EE lady Rithesh Kumble: A sweet guy - great lunch mate - the Campus Connect & .NET guy Girish Aithal Boss - mentor - a wiz at using Excel - overloaded! The other 2 from my department have yet to be captured on my camera

It's been a while.. and then some. Had a nice work week.. 4 days of holidays, followed by 2 work days and then another 3 holidays. Wow! I love working in these conditions. I hate it though when i had to spend the 3 holidays in the office. Not that I was in the whole time, but life just existed between going home to Joel and coming back to my comp at work. The only good thing that happened during this time is that Amrith was in town. Joel learnt to sit and I'm pretty happy that I got some time together with both of them. Family!