Paisa Bolta Hai

Corruption , this word is such a commoner for us but how many times do we actually
get inflicted by it , how many of us and how many times do we really get hit directly ...We just discuss that yeah so much of corruption is there and then just let go ...

I recently had to get some RTO work done and throughout this entire process I felt stupid and to a certain extent I felt impotent and miserable . Certainly this experience have been really instrumental in teaching me great virtues - patience and tolerance. But at what price??? wasting hours standing , extremely rude behavior and what not ...

I had to get NOC cancellation done alongwith transfer of vehicle in my name which
costs around 300 bucks and the process completion takes around 30 days completely.Many of my friends , relatives,parents told not to get into this hassle and get the work done by an agent who would charge say 3000 but then at that time with my energy levels high decided not to BRIBE and in my mind was its we who MAKE or BREAK.

Boldly I headed to KormAngala RTO with now i would say extremely high hopes .The first counter I interacted with was very good and the lady there helped me go to the correct person. I was asked to finish up with my inquiry at another counter from where it all started .

I was asked to show a receipt(which I didn't have ) to a person who was sitting at the back side of the office desk. This person asked me to wait till he gets a receipt number .I tried calling the agent who this owner has engaged to get the number but I was lucky that day , that agent has switched his fone off. So I wanted to know of an alternative from this guy but even after my multiple attempts in reaching out to him he kept telling me that he was busy. While waiting, I saw a person (possibly someone like me) giving 200 rupees to this officer's sidekick and saying aloud in very clear words that he will pay him a 100 more after the work gets done ( All this was said in kannada and I know this bcoz an agent told me the same that these officers will never talk to you but only to us and its the money which speaks , wat u say" paisa bolta hai ") After making me wait for more than an hour my lucky moment came and the officer called me, asked me the vehicle number , checked the status online and told the process is very difficult and could be done but it DEPENDS .This entire task took him less than a minute for which I spent my hours .
The process is deliberately designed in such a way that a person is completely lost about what he is supposed to do and compelled to offer bribes and I too had to succumb to my limitations (vehicle owner was leavin bangalore in next 5 days so i had to complete the process in that time span) and I hired a tout and paid him 3500 bucks and came to office .

In my office when I narrated the entire story of this injustice and expressed my strong desire to launch some complaint , take at least some action such as filing a complaint, meeting higher ups like RTO officer or even reporting it by some means to higher (who, by the way, are not elected), the MLA /MP /ward officer or other elected individuals who supposedly have far too many other grass routes problems & for a huge variety of people, particularly the poorer sections since they are the ones that vote, mostly. My problem will thus seem quite insignificant to them since their voters do not have free piped water, no drainage, expensive power, no proper roads to settlements, etc & these become much more important priorities.My issue pales in comparison on this priority list for those elected, though they still are accountable /answerable to all classes of people, including me.

Why is it that people who are supposed to interact with the public are sitting at the back of the office? Wont it be more efficient and transparent if all such counters are in the front?

NOC process does not look complicated for it to make a citizen deal with multiple counters. Why is it that all the formalities cant be completed at a single counter?

Instead of giving me a flimsy receipt, why am I not given a clean and clear acknowledgment which says they have received everything needed so that if needed I can hold them to account?

Why is it that the entire process is not put on the RTO website in clear terms?

Why am I compelled to BRIBE to make someone do his job for which hez already paid ?

One should do a lot of things. In the end it all boils down to what fight to pick.
For me my fight was to pick or not to pick the tout and I lost my battle :( but
I will surely win another one and its WE who can win it together by not promoting these touts !

Kyun Ho Gaya Na

Love is a beautiful feeling which I used to think to be the toughest one to interpret.One dreams about his/her special one all the life and suddenly they start loving someone they never imagined to be with.I always was of the view that i want mischevious guy with bright shining eyes; intelligent enough to understand my witticisms; sane enough to complement my insanity ... But love doesn't happen in such a regular and ordinary way. It has to tread on the path we never imagine to walk on and with the person we never can imagine to love at the first stage ....and den we hear people say "kyun ho gaya na " :D


Impeccable is the one word which aptly describes him , every word he says or every thing he does seems to have a meaning though that doesnt stop me from breaking into disagreements or going about silly crazy fights ... this guy is beyond trust and true to heart :) Dream of love may not necessarily align with the dream of the special one. Now with him, the dream is indeed fulfilled. But when I look at the dream I used to have once and when I look at him, I feel he has brought more than what I dreamed. More than perfection, the picture looks complete. Sometimes, imaginations exist only till the extent you don't feel. When you begin feeling, imagination ends at its very beginning. Thats what happened to me in love.I spent more time of life with words and silence always been his favourite. So different and away we were, yet so closer we ended being. He and I are just one soul naah he and I are worlds apart.

He's patient and systematic , I'm jumpy
He's quiet, I'm chatty ..... he's the sensible types, I'm the crazy types
He's a geeky nerd or a nerdy geek.
He's into java and me in C
He's into metallica and I m into enigma.
He's into kadak chai , me a coffee lover who has finally learned to settle with tea :)
He's way fitter than me and good at sports .
He never turns up anywhere on time and I am miss punctual
He works till very late making me wait
He is too tall, even for my highest heels
In the last 1 year that I have been friends with him, I have told him
about all of my 3 million crushes, but he has only told me of 2 (of
which I am not the one)
He comes up with weird nicknames for my colleagues tonesh being one :D
He doesn't get haircuts on time not even when his parents were visitin
He begins sentences and doesn't end them.
He claims to be a cook but he can make only one dish that is his
chhamakwa khichdi
He chides me for being careless with money all the time .
He makes me cry buckets and then takes me on ride to cloud no 9 ...(tears r precious ;))
His PJs are worse than mine (I know it's hard to believe).
He irritates me, grins and then says "I irritate you so much na?"
He hates shopping and doesn't let me shop 2 (sob sob )
He woos my cousins and sibling over with ten-minute chat
conversations, and then they tell me that they like him more than they
like me huh
He at times disagrees with correct English and actually makes it sound incorrect.

This is what the mean fellow says :

She is a writer, me a reader
She is the talker, i am the listener
She is smart, i am smarter(although she is quicker in solving DI Qs, but then she has also had lots n lots of practice)
She is into C, i am into java too :)
She is nerdy, i am the cool types
She is a narcissist, am a bigger narcissist.

But in spite of all this our chemistry was a once in a lifetime find for us both. I have never known two people more in tune with one another or meant to be together, he gets me totally and that's why he gets me :)

Making workouts work out !!!!

So its been like over some 3 months I have been gyming :) ,so hows gyming coming along ? don't u get bored ?

Well till now it hasnt been , someone once told hey gym is a great place to meet "the" dudes , now that's different that I havent came across even a semi hunk ...sigh ! but one day I'll, so, that keeps my gyming going !!!

Another is the hearty laugh i have , a dude who comes to gym ,looks at himself in mirror , left right center and leaves !!! I try hard not to laugh, but you know how incredibly funny it is when guys are checking out their own bodies in the gym mirror.

The dude who makes weird sounds when he lifts weights, "Aaahhh!!", "Ohhhh!!" inviting strange looks from people around him.

Then next in the queue we have is the instructor who goes screamin keep up the pace if u want to get a girl with lace or for d girls who want to wear a lace


Then u get a funny sight when the cool guy awaits his turn on treadmill and tries out all the weird possible exercises on earth - ok we know u r cooool !!! :P

Moving on we have two females entering in jus lyk the ladies' chit chatting all set to work out , now that work out is not about tread mill or cycling , huh all dese go moonlighting when comes to the gossiping which makes everythin work out for them ;)

Then u have a guy who can keep you updated with the latest style statement by coming in funky n funkiefr shorts every next day :D



So my 20 minutes in gym arent that boring ... what say ?

Change !!!!!

Everything changes ... have heard it like zillions of tyms by zillions ...

friends ... relationships ... talks n walks .... ur chemistry ... ur priorities

So the only constant is CHANGE which keeps driving so called life and it goes on ...
New things start replacing the old ones and old ones simply start getting passive , sinking deep down getting tagged as memories !!!

Then these memories will come up cropping with the recurring events ...Ironically now when you meet ur close friends err rather erstwhile close friends you are left with nothing but a prefunctory "Hi ... " with an awkward silence taking over ...then to break this silence would come some cliched oxymoronic talks "Aur batao kinds " just for the heck of striking conversations in the name of 'social protocol ' .

Surprising that those friends with whom you would talk of silly thoughts of small deeds ...everything that once answered to your needs the thoughtless but kind ...now simply goes all blind ... weird but true ...everything fades away .The talks with them now lead you into an awkward state and you just don't find words .... and finally comes a bye with a sigh !

You don't even realize how swiftly old things get replaced by new , new by newer ...
I wonder why some people fail to submit to the realities and would harp on ..."lets meet " thingie when they may actually not want it ..may be that's again in the name of social protocol inviting awkward silences ... BUT then there still remain exceptions and there are get togethers which u eagerly await ...
may be there should be no let go's or there should be ... umm confusing ...

Oh well, life goes on and so does work

Time to get back to work and say bbye ......

Aur batao !!!!!

Five recent conversations and all of them invariably boiling to "aur sunao ....."


Two friends.. now distanced by time and place… communicate mainly on gtalk and occasionally on phone… with every coming day, each one of them starts getting busy in his own world, with lesser and lesser common topics to chat on…

One fine day they meet on gTalk, and here is their conversation…

1: “Hey Neha! whats up !!”

2: “Oh, I am good, whats up with you ?”

1: “Yeah me too, doing good…”

1: “kaam n all kaisa chal raha hai”

2: “Yeah, its good”

2: “And how is life”

1: “Never been better :) “

this followes by a pause, both of them get back to there work for a few seconds hoping that other guy will write something, 1 thinks to break the ice & starts fiddling with what to write… but is not able to think anything
So he just starts typing: “Aur sunao…. ” only to see that IM window is already flashing with a new message from 2, and it reads…..

2: “Aur Sunao, Kya chal raha hai…”

Isn’t it common to most of us.. It has become such a natural phenomenon, whenever we don't have anything to say, we just pass the ball to other court, and the standard question is almost everytime just a variant of “Aur sunao ?”

This “Aur sunao”, actually means that tell me something which I don't know about you or tell me something which I know about you but don’t want to ask.

Like:

Is your love life rocking or on rocks ?
Whats the latest gossip ?
Whats the name of your latest crush?
How about your chances of appraisal?
When are you planning to change your job?
When are you planning to go for higher studies ?
When are you getting married?
How is the progress in your startup?

In short, lets catchup buddy and tell me how is life treating you?

So everyone out there, whoever is reading this post:

“Aur sunao, kya chal raha hai ?”

Sex No Bar !!!

I think I seem to be maturing heck too slowly for my age!
Yes i'm 20+ and still in the stage where you have crushes once in a while (not the serious type ,that's one!!!). It's more or less like a teenager or whatever ....
And it is the most inappropriate type of crush - a guy elder to me (roughly by 10 yrs), working at a higher hierarchy level, and last and the most blasphemous - married! No, i don't have a thing for married elder man. Don't judge me dammit :P

well he's surely not the usual crush-at-first-sight types. but then I don't say I m not weird ,he's gone ahead with the kill-by-attitude and behavior style. it's just the way he talks. it's just the way his face lights up like a 500watt bulb when he smiles.
So now we go talking and sipping coffee ..me skipping a gazillion beats

So this guy says , so how is it working here , u in nfs -dev right (thats the name of my team) and then we talk and talk and suddenly the conversation lands to no girls in your team and a question pops up- how is it like with just all the guys around
Well couldn't have said voila and then i headed the conversation telling him everything right from the beginning , just recalled my starting few days at netapp!!!!

We had our new hire orientation program , a training stuff ... first day twas the time for lunch and i see all the new joinees going for lunch , tracing the groups and i see all girls heading together forming a group .I get scared of fully female company (unless I know all of them very well, and I like them, which would make them at least a little bit similar to the kind of girl I am).For me who has like spent most of her childhood hanging out with the guys my cousins and friends, climbing trees, spinning tops, flying kites, and balancing atop the narrow parapet walls, and most of her adult life (so far) with a group of guys pursuing engineering, this was scary. Now don’t get me wrong here. I am not anti-girl or anything. I am all for the ya-ya sisterhood.But,I at that time chose my course and went ahead with 2 guys from my college who were ehh to my surprise pretty good a company .(no flattering , coz i know both the guys would be reading this post ).

So k,another question which would have popped up was why do I run in the opposite direction when I see an all-girls' group? Well, here’s the thing. I believe (rather strongly at that) that girls bring out the worst in each other. For one, girls are complex just realized this when my cousin harped on the same fact a thousand times yesterday.Yes they are,let's just face it .They are. They cry. They say one thing when they mean just the opposite. They can't make up their minds. And then they play games with guys, and politics with each other.

On the other hand, guys are relatively simpler to understand. They have no hidden agenda.They don't judge you on every little thing. In fact, for most of the time, they are lost, clueless creatures who don't get why we cry, why we make those incredibly complex hard-to-decipher statements, why they can’t talk to us while surfing a sports website, why we try to find the 'hidden meaning' in their words (when there isn't any) and why we expect them to be able to read our feelings. Not to even mention how freaking difficult to understand we are. And if all this is not enough, we have those days with mood swings. That’s a lot of things they have to deal with!

So frankly speaking, when there are too many girls around me, I actually feel weird ,may be the talks, maybe I am afraid that my hidden girly traits will take over and I will turn into one of those typical girly girl.

To all guys whom I've confused and annoyed (to the point of utter frustration) with certain extreme girly behavior at times and of recent, I want to apologize. I would like them to try and understand that much as I sometimes it is hard to shake off all girly characteristics, and some of them do surface now and then.

So I told that some of my closest friends have been guys and most of my groupie's and now colleagues and I find it perfectly fine.Let's face it now , we girls can't live without guys. And I am not just talking broken tubelights that need to be fixed or bags which i had to dump in the shelf cabinet some 10 ft high, today morning... I'm talking about the absolute need to have different viewpoints, different talks,different ways of thinking, and different ways of reacting to situations. The Venusians need the Martians.
To all those who say that in ten years' time, women will no longer need men, here's my reply. Bull !!We need them as much as they need us and that's the whole truth.

Think about it ,we really give them a tough time, and yet they still manage to love us.
So all the Ladies, let's cut the men in our lives some slack :) .

I spy , Ice water ,Kites Vs NFS , AOE ....

Had a kid around in office today morning and yay i see him all amused and confused with his eyes searching for something in my aisle n here we go talking :)
Speaking to kids always always brings me a smile that tad bit wider. They know just how to perk up a downward bound day and turn it around.

And each time I talk to them, it brings back so many memories!

Memories of holidays spent together with my siblings. Of our organized midnight sessions,playing tictac-toe ,dot-dot where invariably we would be the only ones awake and thus the only ones to eat the chocolates stolen from the refrigerator ahem ! in the end .The big asoka tree with next to boundary wall for us to climb from… The countless cycle races… Our n number of club and competitions we'll arrange … The picnic three of my friends plotted about for ages, before finally settling down to eat the goodies right on our rooftop… Our mock housewarming where I promptly melted the tiny play cup while attempting to boil milk over a candle flame… Devising ways and means to run away from bed in the afternoon with mom holding hand tight ... Walking past the vegetable vendors and finding it ridiculously funny to mock them …… Our frantic trips to the library and get all comics to make sure we had ammunition for the night to come... The pact to go have ice-cream from Cool Corner every evening … And then, weeping bitterly on the last day of the holidays.....

Darn! Those were fun days. How much we used to play! I don’t remember stepping into the house until it was dark and/or we were too exhausted to lift a finger. And such fun games they were too. Cops and robbers, hide and seek, blind man’s buff, tag, lock and key, dodge ball, cricket, shuttle, flying fighter kites...Oh I m so missing kites today :( :(

But today I look at kids around. They still stay in the same amazing place. But they are so tuned out of all that beauty. Or is it, say, a lack of imagination? Is our Ashoka Tree just an old trunk for them? Our Fairy Forest a scratchy thicket perhaps? Our Memory Lane just a silly grass path?

They don’t read. They don’t play in the mud. They don’t run around the house like we used to, laughing like mentally retarded hyenas. They don’t jump from furniture to furniture pretending to be pirates escaping from crocodiles. They don’t organize plays, magic shows and poetry recitations (with the boundary wall of our rooftop as our stage) for the family and charge the adults for tickets to sit patiently through our valiant efforts (lol! )

Today all the kids turn their noses at all this. They like their TV’s. Not to mention computer games filled with machine guns and sports cars (somehow I like the pillow fights Kittu and I used to have much better that projected ones). Their wish list reads like a Japanese shopping list. They like Beyblades and what not . (What on earth is a Ni Hao, Kai-Lan by the way? I was too embarrassed to ask :D )

Sometimes I feel like I’m a kid and they’re the grown ups. Anyway, if they’re happy, then I suppose it doesn’t matter what they do. But every now and then, I can’t help wishing that they would run outside and actually PLAY! Get dirty… Get yelled at… Laugh uncontrollably… Just be CHILDREN and not the grave little adults they are today.

PS : this post contains excerpts i shared with quite a few friends since last few days with nostalgia striking in .....

Donno Y !

Why is it that when you’re most busy, and you know you need to finish that task by yesterday, you still have this urge to do something else, and you actually go ahead and do it ..... like blog !!!!

Conflicted Morning ....

I was in a conflict today morning ,yeah once again, I took a decision and still wanted to get it validated so I did seek an answer from a friend which I probably didn't wanna hear and felt like saying " get real dude "....I would like to call myself a thinker who believes in logical reasoning and rationality. But I am a bit ashamed to say I do not walk the talk when it comes to things that are special to me. One can content on the definition of special here because I decide it. This does look like a decent problem statement to me, conflicts of interests, moving frames of reference and what not?

Two solutions come to my mind
1. Treat special things normal and apply logic there
2. Leave logic alone and have the rest of the journey without believing in anything.

Is it time for me to walk the talk? - Time will decide .....

PS : Gotto sign off , can't resist myself from peeking in the cube next door from where i hear " oh this equation can't be solved ... quotient is ... maxima will be" ah ....can't let my love go :P

Another Twilight !!!!!

Hundreds of thoughts jostling your mind , many a decisions coming back to you making you rethink every move.... asking you to define every action of yours, acceptance that the things you thought would change but now you are all certain that they won't... letters which i am scared completing , an unending list of things to complete and still I write .....

The night is the harbinger of the now familiar incompleteness and loneliness.......

Where was she, Day thought? Out celebrating her time off or sleeping late. She never could tell, for whenever the woman walked in she was cloaked in a luster that nothing seemed able to weaken. When she brought along her longtime friend, Moon, her radiance seemed doubled. On most days, she was accompanied by a bevy of silly stars, forever smiling. Oh, how she loathed the sight of those senseless creatures beatific faces. And the Moon shamelessly agreed to share space with those little things.

Now, the Sun was a different matter. Always, full of himself, when he took the stage, there was no room for another. But his monologues were worth it. And anyone who attempted a performance while he was center stage would get their fingers burnt for their trouble, literally (she smiled). There was this one time…

But where was Night? It was late and whether she liked to admit it or not, she was craving some rest. That frivolous fool, Night… she must have found someone to talk with… now that kind of thing rarely happened to Day. Sure, the birds did stop early on for a song or two, but soon enough everyone seemed to get busy, no time to talk ,chat and probably no inclination either. That was the trouble with being the best. It was lonely at the top.

Now Night, she had a charm, even when she chose to travel alone. Dressed in her darkest blue, the one that rippled and seemed like black one instant and blue the next, she would flash a smile and everyone would suddenly let their inhibitions fall. Here was Night, they’d say, she’s a friend, there’s nothing to hide from her. Secrets would stampede to fall from mouths and skeletons would wage war to emerge from closets. She always seemed to have that effect.

And here was, bright, brilliant Day with light that none could beat, with the Sun in tow who would wish to lighten up everyone (and at times the bright light piercing the eyes would make his presence undesired) .... except on cloudy days when rain played spoilsport, and had he managed to make a single true friend?. Even Sun, pompous fool that he was, only used her, preening himself on the platform she laid out for him. And the only reason she had condescended to put up with him was because he wanted to be friends. What a delusion! Considering how she was, she should have known better and more importantly, she should have let the resentment subside. She was stronger than that; she had no need to mope, but it rankled that Night seemed popular and with such little effort.

Night wondered what all her admirers would say when they saw her signing off, drunk on the sheer ecstasy of being, pale after having tasted every conceivable pleasure, dreamy eyed… what could they say, except sigh in longing maybe? No signing off ...
Ah, there she was. And her friend, tagging along, dressed in a crescent and an inane smile and still managing to look attractive. The way she was describing it sounded like she was half in love with Moon . What a frightening thought!

Night’s boisterous greeting echoed. With a smile that seemed directed at no one in particular and that encompassed all, Day approached her ,she sulked and turned him back. Night embraced the morose Day. A minute later, she unwrapped her arms and shook her cloak into place once again. There was no sign of Day anywhere.

Another twilight was over!