I am sure most of you are aware of the case, where the Mehta’s decided to approach the high court to allow them to abort their child/ fetus of 26 weeks old on the grounds that the unborn child has been diagnosed with heart complications. Yesterday, the Bombay high court rejected their plea on the grounds that they were not sure that the child could suffer from heart complications. Now, I am no one to comment on this case, but I feel that if such a situation has been diagnosed before the birth of the child, it is best to abort. Just today while returning from the gym, I saw a mentally challenged kid/ young man walking with his grandfather. This person could not even speak or walk properly. All the time while stumbling/ walking, he kept making a peculiar sound. After seeing him, my heart just felt for his parents and grandparents. I don’t know this kid, but even then I was feeling sad for him.. I wonder how sad is family would feel for him. I hope/ know they love him unconditionally, but at the same time I know they must be bleeding a thousand hearts when they see him struggle/ suffer. I guess this is life.. but a person should have the freedom to abort in such cases. What is the use of bringing life to earth when we know he/ she is going to suffer??

This is interesting.. it could be like solving a puzzle everyday until you have figured it.

A couple of weeks ago I travelled Kingfisher first class. The experience was sudden and at the same time very much awesome. It so happened that I had booked my tickets on late Friday night for Saturday morning flight. When I got to the airport, I was told that the flight has been overbooked and since I am a Gold card member with them, I have been bumped up to first class. I was very much surprised. Usually I don’t wear anything extraordinary while traveling, just jeans and some t-shirt. The t-shirt that I was wearing that day was very much faded out and I had not even shaved. So I did feel like I am a bit out of place, since in first class you expect a lot of business types with suits etc or some famous celebrity (today every celebrity is famous). I tried to protest the bumping up from economy to first class, but sensing that it would look stupid on my part decided to just board the flight.

As soon as I seated, I got served with a drink called Sparkle (I think it was just Appy Fizz with cherry popped in). The best part about first class is the seating, you get plenty of leg space + extra recliner seats. Ohh and I forgot to add the headphones which they provided, I think they were noise reduction ones. Once the flight took off, the air-hostess came and handed me a big menu card, which had plenty of food options (veg and non-veg). The size of the menu card was almost 20 times as huge as the one they hand out in the economy. So after a while, the air-hostess came and asked me if I wanted to have corn flakes for breakfast and something from the main menu. I was like hell yeah!! So I ordered my milk and cereal breakfast along with fruits and then something vegetarian from the main menu. The tray in the first class is almost twice as wide as the trays in the economy. The food was very good and I enjoyed eating Cinnamon buns. After the sumptuous meal, I just decided I have had enough, when the air-hostess asked if I wanted any hot chocolate.. I wanted to have it, but then I was too full from the meal and declined the drink. The rest of the journey was spent relaxing in the recliner chair and sleeping. They really treat you like kings on Kingfisher. Btw, my return trip was also bumped to first class. It is also true that once you go first class, you dont feel like going back.

I just read that airlines are now levying charges to book the tickets via internet. This is being followed by low cost airlines like SpiceJet and Indigo. According to the news report, some of these low cost airlines are already charging for booking tickets via phone and now this. Already with increasing fuel prices, air travel is getting more and more expensive and these guys are making travel even more expensive by adding all these weird surcharges. I feel, people should just stop traveling for a day on such flights, may be then they will realize that the consumer cannot and should not be taken for such rides.

So it turns out I am not able to motivate some of my team members to work for me. This sort of didn’t really come as a surprise to me. I know I am not a great motivational speaker or generally don’t know how to motivate someone. For me motivation has always been more of an internal thing. Every time I mess up something, it motivates me to not repeat the same thing again. I usually get motivated by watching other people. So it becomes very hard for me to motivate anyone. The reason I am writing all this down is because I got told this on Friday by one of my team members. Now usually, they all share a love-hate relationship with me, because sometimes I know I dont act right. After all a team lead/ manager has to keep his cool and have patience all the time. Unfortunately, I dont have that. I tend to say stuff, which I should not say or act in a manner in which I should not act. I let my instincts/ emotions take over me, which I know is not good for business. Thus, according to my team members, I am acting my age and have risen up too fast. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have this position. I was more happy working by myself, coming to office, putting in my 9-10 hours and heading home. I have learned a lot at this level, but at the same time I need to learn a few things at a mental level. May be, time is the greatest teacher, and I will learn all these things as I move up and grow.

The other thing that got pointed out to me is that I have answers for everything. I find it hard to just take the blame. I have a reason which is why I acted in a certain manner. I am not saying that the reason is correct, but atleast I should be heard be out. I also get, I should stop trying to change everyone into me. This is last thing on the planet I want. I definitely want people to take the good things I have, but that does not mean I am asking them to change. Some people tell me for them family comes first and work comes next. I believe it is the same for most of us. But what is funny is team members want me to see their sacrifices, while none see mine. For them their family is family and my family is not. There are so many times when I have to change my plans to accommodate their reasons, but then that is expected I guess. But asking them to change their plans is a big NO-NO. Then I have to deal with sobbing team members (girls) or supremely pissed off people, which again is a problem in itself.

At times, I really wonder, if I am good enough for this job. Sometimes, I just feel like quitting and finding something better, or going back to Grad school and then find something else for myself. But then I realize, I am not the kind who gives up, so I am going to keep working on it, until it works out and gets better. I dont know why I have written this.. probably just a lot of pent up frustration which needed to come out. Hopefully things will get better in the coming new year. :). Lets see.

The last few days have been very hectic for me. I was supposed to fly to Mumbai on Friday, but a colleague of mine suffered from severe headache issues and had to be taken to the hospital. I was having lunch, when another colleague of mine called me and said ‘S’ has fallen on the floor and we dont know what is wrong. So I left everything and then went to check on her and decided to get her checked in a clinic. After we got to the clinic, the doctor said the headaches could be a possible result of migraine and that he advised us to get a CT scan done. He gave her a shot and told us we can take her home, but we should get the CT scan done soon. By the time, I dropped her home and returned back to the office, it was already 5:30pm and I had tons of work pending, so I decided it would be best for me to head to Mumbai on Saturday. Got my flights rescheduled and kept working until midnight on Friday.

The next morning woke up at 7:00am and got ready to head to the airport. The taxi drivers in Kolkata are real thieves. First of all, they dont charge by the meter and even when they do charge by the meter, they will always ask for Rs.10-20 more. They always assume that 10-20 bucks dont mean much to us. As a result, I have refrained from taking taxis to airport, usually prefer traveling by the public bus. Anyways I reached airport on-time and found a super long line, holiday travelers. I didn’t know holiday travel was this huge in India. The flight was pretty uneventful and I reached home on time. In the evening went out with R and B to get the wedding gift for my friends S and N, who were tying knot the next day.

Sunday, the day of all rest days, I was up by 5am and ready by 6:30am to leave for S and N’s wedding. Since me and R were the grooms men, we were required to get there early and help with the things. The wedding was a very simple, gracious and an elegant affair. I felt very honored standing next to the groom through out the wedding. Then we went to S’s house, after wedding and had a good time with his family. As I sit here and reflect the time spent in the wedding, I couldn’t help but realise that one by one all my friends are getting married and my number is going to come soon. Anyways, I finally returned home around 6:00pm. Was exhausted like anything. but then decided to head out and meet another friend.

The traffic in Mumbai has become really terrible. Almost every single main street or road is choc-a-block with cars, buses, taxis and rickshaws. I wonder, if we will ever get traffic free roads. The sad thing is the width of the roads keeps increasing, but the number of vehicles on the roads also keep increasing. In these days, anyone can go ahead and buy a car. I believe some sort of premium has to be associated with buying cars, so that streets are not crowded like this. May be a heavy road tax should do the trick. Also I feel all rickshaws should be cleared from the streets. I know a lot of people will lose their livelihood, but we can’t have any more people destroying our city. At the same time public transportation should be improved, more luxury and handicap friendly buses should be introduced. Trains should be made more passenger friendly. We can probably have trains leaving from their origins at every 2-3 mins rather than every 5 mins. Have different train routes, may be some stopping at alternate stations. I feel these are some of the things can be made to improve the traffic situation in the city.

Oh well, a super long post.. I just kept ranting on and on. There are many things that I want to keep to ranting about.. will do more laterz. Until then take it easy..

Due to immense work pressure and the need to relax, blogging has taken a back seat. There have been many times when I felt like I wanted to write.. but then something else would take over my mind and I will get engrossed doing that. The last few days have been a huge learning curve for myself. I realised that people change after you give them power. I also realised that some people are never happy no matter how much you do for them. I feel lost in this world of politics and backbiting. As of now, I just want to break free and fly away.

The other day I decided to put on my India t-shirt and headed out to the gym. It takes me about 25 mins to walk from home to the gym and throughout the way people were giving very strange and weird looks. At first I thought there must be something wrong with me, may be there is something on my face or something is wrong with my hair or may be the shorts are too low. After thinking for a while, I realised nothing was wrong with me, it was just that I was wearing an India t-shirt. I was kind of stunned to see people giving me such weird looks. I am sure those same people would have been totally fine, if I was wearing a Yankees t-shirt or may be an England t-shirt. Strange people we have in our country.