I am home early waiting for an estate agent who is to bring prospective new tenants to see our apartment. Every creak on the outside stairs seem magnified as I wait impatiently filled with mixed emotions.

I can't believe we have been in this apartment nearly two years ... for that matter I can't believe that we have been in London over two years. I don't realise the time just whooshing past! Plans seem to be made to be broken. If it hadn't been for the infamous (and way too much quoted and repeated) credit crunch, we might have even been thinking of buying an apartment. All that seems distant ... but a more realistic and favourable option would be to just continue in our current place. And even that seems a remote possibility now.

While rent increasing is something that we hate but expect, most of our friends in this area have renewed their contract at a reasonable hike of inflation + a bit. That seems the norm with most people I have spoken to. However, our landlord has a little drama every year (well atleast he did exactly this last year). First the property is reassessed for market value and then he proposes a rent which is 10 - 12% higher. Last year we settled at a mid way 5% Now we're back on this again ... it seems to be a tougher negotiation (from what the agent presents). Except that I am fed-up with these games and even if it's a bit like cutting my nose to spite my face, I am ready to move. We have started looking at options incase our current negotiation falls through .. and seems like so is the landlord. Though moving might be the more expensive option than giving the landlord the increase .. I hate the idea of being taken for a ride. As I keep waiting, I wonder if anyone is really coming or this was another general pressure tactic!

Ten Years Later

I am in Delhi after nearly 10 years! It's a short trip for some work, but I have been very excited about visiting Delhi after so long. 

I land, and I know I am back. People jumping the queues in immigration, major pushing at the exit point ... all the usual Delhi aggression from the minute I landed. Never mind since I was in a happy mood to be here ... but it just reminded me of all the things I disliked about Delhi in the first place.  

Negative start aside, once out of the airport, I was so impressed with what the city has done with the infrastructure. I didn't get a chance to get on the metro, but drove around quite a bit and the whole flyover network, while confusing, transformed the traffic. Bombay could certainly learn a lesson or two on upgrading infrastructure.

Two days were spent going to some of the old places Dilli Haat, South Ex... and going to some new places. I also really wanted to visit DU, but couldn't manage the time. I was quite surprised at the number of pubs around the city ... the Barista culture now seems to be replaced with a more pubbing culture. We were out on Saturday early evening and two sets of school kids came and sat at the next table - drinking beer and having an occasional smoke. I later found out from my school going cousins that it's quite common and nothing to be shocked about. I still was, I can't quite reconcile drinking (at pubs) and smoking with teenagers.

It's good to be back after so long ... I am still not convinced I would like to live here ... but it's been a nice walk down memory lane. And now I am off home till the end of the week for some rest, relaxation and pampering.

Inertia and the demotion

30in2005 has jolted me out of inertia with the threat to send me to the 'RIP' category ... though at this point I checked and realised that I have already been demoted to the 'Once in a while' slot ... well ... despite my good intentions it has turned out pretty much that way .. it hasn't even averaged a measly twice a month! Now lets see if I can claw my way back to being on the regulars list.

Usually, while I am on the tube I keep thinking about all these things I 'must' write about ... and then it's forgotten. These days I am pre-occupied with one thought (though action on it is very slow!) - I am pained with my job. I have a new manager ... less the better on that topic the better ... and am looking to change roles but it's not working out. So whenever I have logged on to actually write .. it's been more crib-crib-crib ... and then I just delete the post ... though writing it out does feel quite therapeutic!  So it all feels grey .. (unlike the weather for a change!) and I didn't want to spread the gloom.

Justifications done ... inertia broken ... and now I am back (I shall not check at this point, how many times I have said this in this year!).

Save the change

How much can collecting everyday change amount to?

That's what we ended up collecting in the last year since we got ourselves a little piggy bank.One rainy afternoon (and we get a lot of that!), I sat and counted it all ... and it's a whopping 132.8 GBP! That's paying for our flights on the next holiday ... and I know it's our money, but it feels like a bonus :)

Of holidays and laptops

Sigh .. the Easter weekend just flew past as expected. Since we're changing from one visa type to another, our passport is with the 'home office' and that made sure that we couldn't leave the country for the long Easter break. The choice was between staying in London and just chilling out..and going to someplace within the UK. Imagine a Sunday .. which is actually like a Friday with two more days of holiday left .. but that was outweighed by the attraction of getting out of here, switching off for a few days and getting a much needed break.

That worked out fine (except that I hadn't thought through the cost implication properly!). We decided to drive around Devon and Cornwall with a couple of friends. It was beautiful ... though very cold. The fun with driving is that it can be totally impromptu. Find a place on the map, read about it in Lonely Planet and off you go. The wind and cold were a pain though .. but the beauty made up for it. The country side and villages in UK are so picturesque, it's looks directly out of a picture book (ofcourse I have considered the fact that the picture books might have been based on this in the first place thereby creating quite a skew!).

In all .. it was good to get away. Though one thing I would do differently in hindsight is not carry my laptop and blackberry. Life pre laptop and blackberry meant that I could really switch off on holidays and relax. While it was fun to have Internet access, I think it stopped me from really switching off. On Monday evening I was actually replying to a work mail -  not good. So next time it shall be a no blackberry/laptop holiday ... or so I think ... might just give in at the last moment.

I have take such a long blog break,  it's become like a sabbatical. At work, amongst other things, I have been working on a few re-launches in the last few months.  That got me thinking about a blog re-launch ... new colour, design and some general newness and excitement.

I tried for few hours .. but just could not get my head around xml code to use an image for the background. Well, I could keep trying, but I figured I could get writing before I get my little head to figure out code writing ... something which is I know so little of that it's like going to primary school for the web world.

After many months of stress and over-work, I am finally getting to sit in a comfortable chair with a footstool and not worry about work. I have been waiting for the Easter weekend for a long long time. This year is not quite as exciting as previous holidays. Though it's freezing cold ... it feels great to be in the country side. Away from the chaos of London .. in  a nice B&B where the nearest neighbour is over a mile away. It's past midnight and B and a friend are playing some game where you need to think. Soo not my kind of thing to do on a holiday.. left to me, the brain shall remain switched-off till Tuesday. So I've been reading Economist, listening to Virgin radio (by far the best radio station in the UK) enjoying some good red wine .. and decided to stop waiting for the perfect moment or re-launch and just get back to the blog world ..... 

A rather late recap on 2007

Ending the year on a holiday is always good.. it’s a sure shot a high. Sadly back to regular routine that wears off. So the exhilaration has ebbed and now it’s a more realistic look at the last year.

Last year started with mixed feelings and some resolutions. The good thing .. the resolutions sort of worked out. I did change my job for the better .. much better in fact .. and I did lose weight (well not as much as I would like, or as much as needed .. but am happy with the start). By mid year I was in a comfort zone with predictions for my one word for the year being ‘stability’. That’s actually how it did stay for much of the year.. and I was quite happy for it. The last couple of years before it had too much change .. new locations .. academics .. career change ... after a while it gets tiring. Normalcy and a lack of excitement felt soooo good.

Sadly, as I was settling into comfort zone reflecting on the year things took a steep turn. The shock of the unexpected absorbed part of the blow ... and that it was in more mundane events like work rather than harsher events faced by some friends who lost dear people and faced bad health. And just as I thought we had got to our lowest point .. it got lower .. and my department got restructured. Well, I am lucky to still have a job I suppose.. otherwise the overwhelming feeling is that of being ‘short-changed’.

I am not sure if I should believe the feedback .. or am just missing out on the point. But apparently I got a lower position than I expected since I don’t talk enough about myself. Apparently selfish show-off culture gets you further than being the nice helpful colleague who delivers the work but doesn’t trumpet it. I cannot believe my own naivety. Actually I can’t believe the reality. It has truly been a revolutionary year .. the year I grew up. I suppose the advantage of when you’re junior is that the work is more sugar coated and you’re rewarded as you deserve. Middle management is just a peek into the world of ugly politics which just gets worse as you go up. As I see things get covered up, trumpeted for way more than they are worth, harsh reality being rose tinted .. it seems unreal. While I struggle to accept it .. I reluctantly admit that this is the reality of the corporate work.. it’s a world I need to start getting used to .. to fight in .. and learn to play on its own terms.

And with that .. a very Happy New Year. Hope 2007 was good for you .. what’s your one word for it?

I just don't get it

Every time I read about a teenager going on a shooting rampage, I just don't get it. This one being the latest in the ever growing number. It reminds me of the book 'We need to talk about Kevin', however, being fiction and the way it is, I don't think it gave me an idea of the 'Why'. 

It did however, make me think of what the families go through after something like this.. especially the parents and feelings towards the family from those who might have lost someone to the incident or even others who know them. We tend to form opinions at the slightest details .. this would be a big millstone to carry.

But in all this .. I still don't understand why .. I wonder if anyone does.

So much for a post a day

All I managed was 10 posts in a month of 30 days . . but what a month it has been .. one I am unlikely to forget in a long long time!

The month did not just continue as it had begun it progressively got worse. There was not a single weekend that I did not work through .. and most days were till midnight. It was worse with slipping deadlines and unbelievable pressure on the getting the deliverables to the project team. To make matters worse, I have recently been given some new responsibility (someone's left and its stop gap till a new person joins) and I know very little about the area. There's been no time to meet people around the business and in all this chaos there was a report due on some issues in this business for which I was trying to get inputs from people around the business, but I did not get a single reply in time and I knew too little to put together by myself. It doesn't end here .. unrelated to my work .. there's been lots of chaos at B's workplace and threat of mass redundancy. In all this I had my annual review and it was only lukewarm, heavily influenced by how much behind schedule I am on the current project (its irrelevant that most of it has been because of things pretty much out of my control). 

All this just built up and up and up .. till one Friday in a meeting with my boss I totally broke down. Not only was it super embarrassing . . it comes across as quite professional. I had felt it coming but I was just rushing from one meeting to another that day and really wanted to take a break before this one to just get away and breathe .. but no time for that .. and it happened even though I tried quite hard to avoid it. Poor guy pretty much freaked.. he obviously knew how much stress there had been with everything (though not about my personal problems) so I tried to blame it on that and hope that it is not something that gets attached as a label to me (though at that point in time ofcourse I wasn't worrying so much about career progression and labels!). After the waterworks were under control .. he stayed late and helped with some of the work. Needless to say that the weekend after this was spent slaving at work and getting some of my overdue work out. The work is finally under control with all the overdue stuff completed for now .. B's workplace did have the mass redundancy and we've gone through the whole roller coaster of emotions on it.. and issues around sorting out my own work permit. And now I am just so tired . . and also so relieved not to have any work on this weekend. Am pretty sure by the next one it'll be quite different.

Lots of lessons for me! For one, I have become more organized about my work .. and it helped my spirits that my boss was finally pretty happy with the results of the project/presentation. It helps that there are no immediate financial issues and in a melodramatic way I think this is not a big issue given we're all healthy and happy! Most important lesson though .. I now recognize that 'stress' is a pretty real issue. I never gave the idea of stress much importance.. I always equated it to some work pressure .. next time I will surely be a little more respectful about the build up of this extra pressure!

A pretty action packed month and pretty ironical. When I was thinking of year end I had written that this was pretty much it as far as 2007 goes since nothing much would happen in the last two and a half months .. and then deleted it thinking I should not be speaking too soon. ESP :) ?!

It's 3 deg outside and the minimum has dropped to 1 deg.

That's it ... I'm done saving the environment .. I want my heating on ..NOW!

Year-end

It's just November, but already feels like the end of the year.

We are going through our annual review process, setting targets for next year, updating work-plans with everyone's vacation plans so that work can be planned better (i.e. find the 'bakra' to dump the work on).

I have started thinking about how this year has 'gone' (.. or nearly so), what I want from next year. More importantly, holiday plans, even the generous 6 weeks in the U.K. seems short for my holiday wish-list.

Winter is here. Oxford street is lit-up. All the Christmas parties at work are being planned. Sales have begun. Shops are over-crowded... and even basic shopping is a pain. I have started making long lists for presents to be bought. New Year's eve discussions have started ... festivities in the air.

.... AND it's nearly time for my trip home!!

Half of a Yellow Sun

I am helping L work on her CV to look for a job. She is much older than me and has been on the welfare system for years and is now looking to get back to work. Before we started the whole job and CV process we were generally chatting about our past and I mentioned that I had moved here a few years ago and asked her where she was from.

L mentioned that she was from Nigeria and then to fill the silence of a lack of topics I mentioned that I had recently read a book about freedom movement for Biafra. I hadn't quite expected it, when she then told me that she was growing up in Nigeria or rather Biafra then. She soon started talking about what it like to be in Biafra, growing up at the time of the war. From being well off, her family practically became nomads, stood in queues for ration, lived near starvation and saw death and destruction all around. Reading the book was an eye-opener, but hearing it first hand was quite a different experience. She had so many stories, including how after the war she was miraculously reunited with her family.

Reading about wars around the world in the news is so different from thinking of people who are living through it. I am not sure I can articulate it clearly, but the experience of meeting L has touched me in a way I can't quite describe.

Happy Diwali

A very Happy Diwali to everyone.

Somehow it feels more like Diwali here than when I lived in India. Since there it was a more family thing everyone did their own thing. However, with our friends here, I suppose the feeling of being 'away' is strong, so Diwali becomes a big group thing .. though celebrated over the nearest weekend. Last night was a get together and playing cards nearly all night. A Diwali lunch today and a party tonight .. it feels nice and festive!

Run, Fat Girl, Run

In the last ten years (8 years to be precise) during which I have put on tens of kgs, this is the first time I have made a real attempt at losing weight and more importantly becoming healthy. .. and it has not been easy.

For the first six months of the year, I kept kidding myself into thinking I can do this on my own. .but ten years of indiscipline is difficult to overcome. It took me committing to parting with my hard earned income to a personal trainer ..and many comments by relatives (especially the particularly unhealthy ones who said I was like them!!) that I could even get started. Then was the very slow uphill task of making one small change at a time - stop the cookies in office, oats for breakfast, snacking on fruits (ugh! even now it hardly feels like a snack!) and so on. I am still fundamentally a greedy, unhealthy person but overall I think I'm doing pretty well on the healthy food front.

Sadly, just food control can't do away the damage of all the alcohol and fried food over the years. So the exercise is up. B and I have finally made our peace that morning gym is just not going to happen. Leaving at 7:30 is bad enough. .. nothing can make that 6:30 .. absolutely nothing! So gym is after work .. 4 days a week ..and comes with it's share of hilarious gym experiences, the latest being spin class! There's me, huffing and puffing along next to all these super fit bankers .. seems familiar! Then there was me trying to start running. Some random enthusiasm made my sign-up for the Hydroactive run which Sunrayz was doing. . and then of course I had to try to start running.. even if it was going to be for the first km. One week of trying I realized 200m was more like it and 500m would be good. What did come as a big surprise was that I actually enjoyed jogging .. if I can call it that ..it was more like jog 100m then crawl for the next 100. After the run though enthusiasm was overcome by creaking knees which refused to let me torture it with the force of all my million kilos pounding on it ..so running has been suspended for a bit.

Its all not bad. The clothes are becoming lose. My face looks less like a lunar eclipse and the weight is going down 100 grams at a time. Its not as fast as I'd like it to be but then I need to burn many hundred thousand kcal for all that fat to melt.. which running rather than impatience will achieve. Till then .. it just has to be more of those horrible spin classes and maybe even try those crazy body attack classes just to give those people a laugh.

Shortcut

Just got back. For a change, it was not work .. but watching Deathproof that made it a late night. A typical Tarantino film .. totally enjoyed it. ..esp the second half.

And now there's only 11 minutes left to make the midnight deadline and avoiding a second slip. So just a really good ad for today. Good Night.



And in case you want to watch a another good ad .. check this out.

From my daily luxury of reading news during lunchtime ..

The sub-prime story seems to be back with a bang. For anyone who might have any confusion about what its all about .. watch this video. It's funny .. and a fairly apt summary of the issue.




This is the story I found most disturbing .. but more on this later.

First Slip

Just two days and I have already slipped once and missed a day of posting. Not good and also the growing doubts about managing a post every-day.

To give some context about why, let me describe the last one month. Busy does not even begin to describe it. I started working on a new project in October. It is hard enough that it is a huge project involving lots of departments, what makes it tougher is that for everything there are big team meetings which slows the whole process. Also, the person leading it is very involved with every tiny decision ..so more delays since nothing can move without him signing it (all very bureaucratic). Add to the woes - people quitting and everyone too busy to help to take on anything additional. So there's all my regular stuff (much less interesting) and this. All this said, its possibly the most I have learnt in the last year.

Net result: Much less sleep. Weekends and late nights working. Lots of stress, dreaming about work (ugh!!) and so on. I also am not being able to demarcate work time and non-work time - so its all blended and much less efficient. Hopefully by the end of this week things will be more under control (I have been hoping this for a few weekends now) and I can atleast salvage the weekend. I realize that I no longer have the enthusiasm I had at 22 when I could work and party and keep repeating the cycle of that without any problem at all.

That's work out of the way. No more on this topic for the rest of the month.

Guy Fawkes and Diwali

This evening I suddenly heard the sound of fireworks and rushed to the living room to see that our community gardens had organized fireworks for Guy Fawkes night. I abandoned what I was doing and planted myself on the sofa and peered into the window to watch a lovely display of light and colour. I love the visual fireworks over the 'noisy bomb type' ones. I had expected to miss the fireworks this year because I didn't have the enthusiasm to go to one of organized bonfires at Battersea Park and the likes, so it was a nice unexpected surprise.

While sitting there it felt so much like Diwali (with less noise!). As a child, I rarely went out during Diwali because all the smoke from the crackers hung around as smog and invariably I would react badly with a sore throat and the works. It was pretty much the same, except this is pre-Diwali. Next weekend there is Diwali to look forward to .. a small version of the fireworks and a nice party.

NaBloPoMo minus one

While I was waiting for the eternally delayed tube today, I suddenly got thinking about how a year back I was blogging each day in November last year. . and now I barely even get time to log on.

Things have changed a lot in these 12 months and while I had all the time this time last year .. all of last month I have barely had time for anything except work. It's good in a way .. but it has been very stressful. Regular working till midnight, weekends .. it's totally crazy.. even when I go to sleep my every growing ToDo list is spinning through my head.

So I figured that though I've missed the first day .. how about trying to post each day for the rest of this month - NaBloPoMo minus 1. Let's see how long I can make it last.. but it will a nice distraction .. and some fun. Anyone game to join?

De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da

On Saturday was the last concert of the European leg to The Police reunion tour. We had got tickets and come Saturday evening we made our way to Wembley Arena in time to even watch the entire performance by the warm up band.

Nicely settled into our seats I noticed how empty the place looked. I put it to the big Rugby match which seemed to interest more people than a 80's band. The seats next to us filled up in the next fifteen minutes .. and to my dismay and surprise it was a family with two kids - who looked 4 and 8 or thereabouts. I couldn't believe that they had actually spent all that money on a ticket for a little kid. Apart from feeling like I was at a west-end Lion King show, it was fine. The first group started - ok music, more people coming in, drinks being bought .. and slowly the people next to me start pulling out chips, biscuits and whatever else. Did they think they were on some Sunday picnic at the zoo? The kid next to me looked fairly bored since she could hardly see beyond the tall man in front of her. To make it worse everyone kept sitting .. and the thought of sitting still and watching a rock show was too much of a disappointment.

Group 1 done, off the stage, hall nearly full now and anticipation building. Family decide they want some other seats .. so they thankfully leave. Not before they left some sticky syrupy drink all over .. which kept making my shoes stick to the floor. No more rock shows in London!

Then The Police came on. Instantly all 15,000 people in Wembley Arena stood up. Message in a Bottle and Sting looking absolutely amazing (don't they all look so much better now than when they were younger?). Lights, sounds, visuals .. its was perfect. Except that my shoes kept getting stuck so I decided to ask the steward for some newspaper .. and instead he moved us towards the front. It could not have been better. I loved every moment .. did not sit for the two hours .. even 'Every breath you take' sounded great. There were two - three encores .. all the favourites played .. though it started badly.. it turned out perfect. Now, U2!