I think we can all relate to this…

March 27, 2012 ~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

Ant holding a rock

March 21, 2012 ~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

I found this picture while I was browsing through Reddit today. Just simply amazed looking at the picture. The ant is biting the branch and holding the rock in the air. This picture has been taken by Yu Wu in China.

Evening sky in Lonavala

March 13, 2012March 13, 2012 ~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

Took this pic while in Lonavala, a couple of weeks back.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Ekla Chalo Re

March 11, 2012 ~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

I heard this song yesterday in the movie Kahaani. This song is sung by Amitabh Bachchan. Since the time, I have heard this song, I have fallen in love with it. The original song is written by Rabindranath Tagore during the Indian Independence struggle. I found the original translated lyrics from Wikipedia and have pasted them below.

If they answer not to thy call walk alone,
If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall,
O thou unlucky one,
open thy mind and speak out alone.

If they turn away, and desert you when crossing the wilderness,
O thou unlucky one,
trample the thorns under thy tread,
and along the blood-lined track travel alone.

If they do not hold up the light when the night is troubled with storm,
O thou unlucky one,
with the thunder flame of pain ignite thy own heart
and let it burn alone.

New Beginning

September 30, 2011September 30, 2011 ~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

I have recently moved to a new organization. It was difficult to say good bye to the team members and colleagues at my previous organization, since I have worked with them for such a long time. But as they say, all good things come to an end. My association with my previous Organization has also come to an end. Well my current organization is very different compared to my previous organization, starting from the culture to the nature of business to the way of dressing.. everything is different. While different isn’t bad, adapting to changes all across can get a bit challenging. However, so far, I feel I am doing alright. My team members are really nice and helpful. They have been setting up meetings for me with different people who have offered valuable insights into how this place operates.

Personally, I feel I have been given a gift of time. May be that feeling will change once I get involved with work here. In my previous organization, due to workload, I was really starved for time. Working 6 days a week, didn’t leave me with much time to do anything else. However, with 2 weekly off’s I feel I will be able to pursue some of things I didn’t have chance to pursue earlier. Earlier, a lot of my time used to go in traveling – may be approx. 4 hours a day. With my new job, the travel time has been reduced to almost 40 mins both ways. That has ended up saving a lot of time. I have already started going to the gym and the next thing I am looking to do is work on my writing – add new posts, write short stories, work on things I am really passionate about. So I am looking forward to a lot of things. I hope I am able to work on the same.

Mental Anguish

August 16, 2010 ~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

Lately, I am undergoing a lot of mental anguish where I am constantly thinking about the things that are happening in my professional life. It has reached a point where I am now mentally stressed out and just feel like leaving everything for a while and heading out somewhere far. I have also been thinking about how my life has taken shape over the last decade. The opportunities I had and how I let it slip out of my hand. Just thinking about all those things is making me feel really sad and stressed out. There are so many things which I want to do, but I am not able to do because I am so dogged down with the current obligations. Almost half of my pay goes in paying the EMI's and I am yet to buy a house. Every morning I wake up just thinking about all these things and saying to myself that things will get better. I know, only I can make them better, however, I dont know why I am not even trying. Whenever Geeta tells me to do something abt it, I say I do not have the time. I always keep putting things away even though those are things that I should be doing. May be I am too used to living this way. May be this stress is an integral part of me. May be I am too afraid to take a chance to change things for the better. I dont know.

Trip to Aarey

July 5, 2010 ~ Akshay ~ Leave a comment

Finally got myself registered for PMP mandatory training at PMI Mumbai Chapter. The PMI office has moved from Wadala to Royal Palms in Goregaon which gave us (me and Geeta) to explore Aarey Milk Colony. The whole place looks really beautiful during rains, the green and gray complement very well. We decided by checking out some sample offices/ flats in the building where the PMI office is located and took some pics of the view from the same. The next we decided to walk down the Aarey road and it was worth the walk. On the way we saw some amazing trees, snails and also went paddle boat riding in the Chota Kashmir club. While boating, it started raining really heavily and it added all the more the charm to the place. I havent been boating in a really long time and really had a good time with Geeta. I really feel lucky to have someone like her in my life as she helps me rediscover myself. There have been a lot of changes in me, which has led me to exist and not live my life. These times with her make me live my life again. Hoping for such times to continue for a long time to come.

Long time no write

June 19, 2010 ~ Akshay ~ 1 Comment

It has been a while since I have written anything. There are a lot of things which have happened which I would have wanted to share, but due to too much work pressure have not been able to do the same. Lately I have been working like there is nothing. It seems like I have been demoted from a manager to a worker class employee. The current project which I have been working on is going on from last one year with no sight in the end for the same. I am finally realizing that transitioning a project of this magnitude (15000+) employees is not a piece of cake. The entire project has just kept me busy with no time to pursue anything else. I am finally writing after such a long time because of persistent efforts of my fiancé who has been insisting I write something. Even this post I am writing while traveling in the flight and now in the taxi. I am not sure if it is just me or even others in mid-management level are also going through the same. As of right now I am hoping that I keep writing more often and write on more subjects other than just work.

The last weekend I had the opportunity to visit Kolkata to attend a friend’s wedding. It was after a year and half that I was visiting the city again and I was nostalgic about almost everything.. right from the roads to various locations and on seeing my friends. It was absolutely great meeting friends after such a long time. However the morning was spent visiting my in-laws relatives in Kol. They are pretty nice people and it was good to spend some time with them. Just that they fed me too much for breakfast starting for chips, dry fruits to paratha’s, sabji etc. It was just too much for me to handle at 10:30am in the morning after eating mysore masala dosa and wadas in the flight. I left their home at 11:30 or so and then headed to meet my friend Zoohie at her house. I was staying at her house.

It was so good to see her after such a long time. It was even more awesome to see her son Parth who has grown so much since I last saw him. I played with Parth in the meanwhile Chaitali, Arindam, Indranil and Sudha also arrived. I was feeling so good that I was meeting with my team members with whom I had worked 18 months ago. It felt good and bad to know how they were doing in their personal and professional lives. In a way, I do feel somewhat responsible for the situation they are in currently in their professional lives. I wish I had done some things differently. Zoohie had prepared delicious biryani which we all enjoyed while discussing our lives, interspersed with movie songs and who is the hottest actress currently etc. After speaking with everyone for sometime Arindam, Indranil & Sudha decided to leave, while rest of us decided to head to City Center to get a gift for my friend who was getting married. We got her a couple of things from City Center and had dinner there and returned home. I was dead exhausted when I reached home and just went to sleep while Chaitali and Zoohie chit chatted.

Day 2

The next morning me and Zoohie had to go Priyanka’s house to attend her wedding function, while Chaitali was at home and we asked her to stay back saying we would be back in an hour. It was a typical Punjabi wedding function where the bride was gifted with bangles and “kalires”. I was the camera man and thank god for that else I would have got really bored with so many unknown people. I think people become more friendly when they see someone clicking snaps. The function was good. At one point Priyanka and Zoohie were crying together.. the whole scene was very moving. The ceremony took longer than we anticipated and at one point we wanted to skip lunch so that we could return back and be with Chaitali who was waiting for us. However, we did have lunch and left for home. We reached home and left again for Mani Square mall in another 30 mins. The mall is huge. It had started in a few days after I had left Kolkata for good. We spent some time there and decided to leave since we had to attend Priyanka’s wedding. I bid good bye to Chaitali as she left for home.

We reached home and changed into the wedding “costumes” and headed to Calcutta Boating Club. The venue was awesome, open ground next to water, though I felt the stage could have been bigger and grander. But then it was good and thats what it matters. We greeted the bride and the groom and then went about speaking to the bride’s relatives. The dinner was sumptuous and there were a lot of different food varieties, chinese, italian, chaat, amritsari etc. The desserts included jalebi, carrot halwa, malpua, baked rossogollas and ice cream. We thoroughly enjoyed the dinner and then spent quite some talking to the bride’s relatives. It felt very strange and good sharing so many things with them. We finally left for home at around 10.45pm. After reaching home, I packed for my morning flight and called it a night.

I woke up with a cough at around 230am and since then couldn’t sleep at all due to very terrible cough. Zoohie gave me some cough medicine, then advised me to take steam. I was not sure that I wanted to take steam at 2:30am in the morning, however I decided to go ahead with it. It was very strange to take steam at 2:30am in the morning, however coupled with D’cold and Vicks it proved very effective. I fell asleep in sometime only to be woken up by my alarm. Sadly it was time to go. The cab arrived at its designated time and there was waving good bye to Zoohie, not knowing when next I would be meeting her. Overall the trip was very good and I enjoyed a lot. Hoping to go there soon.

Category: General