As sit here on the bed listening to classic rock, I can’t help but miss a few people in my house. I don’t understand why they do come in your life only to leave you feeling much more miserable than before. I have never felt this alone in my entire life. Sure enough, I have my friends but even they have observed a marked difference in me. I have become a lot quieter than before. It is as if everything that was near me has been taken away or somehow all the fun was sucked away and now I am just left with loneliness. I don’t know why I am writing this. I guess it is just one of those moments where things just come out. I hate being like this. I seriously need some vacation time or time away from being alone. It is not like the break-up is having an effect on me or anything like that. I guess whatever happened has happened for good. Or it is not like I am missing someone in my life. But I do feel emptiness, something that I haven’t felt in a long time. This, I guess is probably the darkest post of my blog. Hopefully will be the only dark post.

Once again I am extremely sorry for not being able to update the blog for quite a long time. I try and be regular but it is just that I have been very much caught up with work that I dont really get a chance to update. Anyways…

Here is the update.. Diwali with folks was awesome. Though, I wished my Dad didnt have to go abroad a few days before that. I had fun doing the puja, incidentally this was my first time. It was good to have some quiet time with the family though. I also got a chance to catch up with some old friends and also got to eat lots of good food. So all in all a very happy diwali.

I returned to Kolkata on the 24th and the first thing I did was signed the apartment lease papers and got myself a place to stay. The rest of the week was spent in cleaning and buying things for my new place. So now I have a apartment of my own and hopefully I will turn that into some kind of party paradise. There are though plenty of things that I need in my apartment right now, like it needs a music system, a TV and may be a XBOX 360 and last but not the least it needs broadband internet connection (which I will be getting this weekend HOPEFULLY). Ohh OH!! I forgot a nice couch for myself.

On the work front I am learning new things everyday and it feels really good. My team is ready to take on the project and I am feeling pretty confident that I will be able to deliver what has been asked of me.

Other than that.. India lost once again to Australia.. it seems like we can never win against them and got ourself booted out. Ok.. lastly, I hope I can update more frequently, until the next post adios.

I am finally home for Diwali.. Its been 6 years since I have been with my family during the festival of lights and it really feels good :).

Its been around 4 months since I have been working in India and everyone asks me this one question “How does it feel to work here?”. Everytime I reply in a very polite way, “feels alright and not too bad.” But seriously working in India sucks. You have 10 people to bring you down for every positive step you take. The title or designation means everything here, even though that person may not be knowing jack shit about the topic. Also usually people take their titles to their heads and can get really arrogant. There is bureaucracy at every single level. There is lack of transparency in how things get done and they take forever to get done. You ask for something and it usually takes 3-4 days to get done, when the same thing can be done in a day in the US.

A lot of importance is given to the number of hours you put in the office. So if I am working 9 hours a day and my colleague works 12 hours a day, then he is more hardworking than I am, even though we achieve the same targets. I personally believe that efficiency takes a back seat here. The attitude is like yea, we will put in more hours later and get it done. If you actually work your shift and leave at the end of it, people actually look at you as if you have committed the biggest sin of your life. The quality of personal life here also sucks. Some offices here work for 7 days a week. Now, tell me where does that leave time for spending with family etc? The sad part is the supply of labor here is abundant and cheap, so most of the people here have no choice but to suck it up and work. Now, though with the advent of IT companies, the work week here is now a 5-day affair for most IT employees.

The other part I hate the most is, whenever there is a client visit. It seems like we go down on all floors just to please them. People who have done nothing on the project will be there to show that look we have made this sucessful. The entire office gets revamped when the client visits and the employees are asked to dress in their best. I have never seen anything like this happening in the US. It just makes me feel like for 150 years we were ruled by the British and now we are ruled by Americans.

The other thing I have observed is people here lack puntuality. I am very serious about this. I have never been late for any meeting in my professional life, be it US or India. Here if we have a meeting at 1pm, people walk in at 1:15 – 1:20pm, as if other person’s time has no value. It can get really annoying to wait.

So yea.. this is what I really feel about working in India. I could be wrong.. but this is what I feel.

I used to watch this show when I was in the US. It is probably the best show about nothing.. here are some of the quotes that I like.. enjoy reading them

1. I was the best man at the wedding. If I’m the best man, why is she marrying him?

2. It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.

3. What is a date really, but a job interview that lasts all night? The only difference is that in not many job interviews is there a chance you’ll wind up naked.

4. You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, “See if you can blow this out.”

5. Men want the same thing from their underwear that they want from women: a little bit of support, and a little bit of freedom.

6. Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them’s making a poop, the other one’s carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge.

7. Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason

8. The Swiss have an interesting army. Five hundred years without a war. Pretty impressive. Also pretty lucky for them. Ever see that little Swiss Army knife they have to fight with? Not much of a weapon there. Corkscrews. Bottle openers. “Come on, buddy, let’s go. You get past me, the guy in back of me, he’s got a spoon. Back off. I’ve got the toe clippers right here.”

9. Seems to me the basic conflict between men and women, sexually, is that men are like firemen. To men, sex is an emergency, and no matter what we’re doing we can be ready in two minutes. Women, on the other hand, are like fire. They’re very exciting, but the conditions have to be exactly right for it to occur.

10. I will never understand why they cook on TV. I can’t smell it. Can’t eat it. Can’t taste it. The end of the show they hold it up to the camera, “Well, here it is. You can’t have any. Thanks for watching. Goodbye.”

Ok.. so I am sort of back.. Thanks to the free wireless connection in the neighborhood. I didnt know it existed else this post would have come a lot earlier. Anyways, so I am here in the city of Joy and frankly speaking all my joy has evaporated into thin air. I think I need to get more used to the city. Here are my first impressions of the place so far..

1. Ambassador cars

The city is full of them. It seems like the entire Ambassador population is in this city. They are primarily used as cabs here. Though should say, they do make for very spacious cabs.

2.Pan stalls

Almost every single corner has atleast one pan stall. They eat too much pan here and you are right to assume the city has plenty of red artwork.

3.Durga Pooja time

It seems like the entire city comes alive during this time. I am very fortunate to be here during this time. They have set up pandals in almost each and every street here and the entire city population comes on the street every single night for 4 nights in a row. You will find most shops are closed during the day time and open up during the evening. The people of this city roam the entire city on foot every night visiting most pandals. I have never seen so many people come together at night.. it is really awesome to see hundreds of people, with their loved ones, husbands with their wives, guys with girlfriends, walking together, visiting pandals and getting the darshan.

Well I am missing my family here. I wish they were here with me.

I am moving to City of Joy on Monday. It is possible that I wont be able to update this blog until I have a proper internet connection at my place. It has only been three months since I have been with my family and now I am off again to live alone. I dont think I will ever be with the people whom I love. The last few weeks have been very difficult for me personally. To bring an end to something you have constructed hurts a lot. But I think life moves on and now I have to move on, to another city.

The other day me and my colleagues were having an interesting talk. We were discussing about the Egyptian pyramids and how perfect they were. I was watching this show on the History Channel a few months back which discussed how aliens might have helped build the pyramids. The pyramids are actually aligned based on stars or some zodiac (I am not sure which one though), but the mysterious part is they are not even off by an inch. How could the Egyptians build something so perfect with tools that were available during those times. Those stone slabs must be weight tonnes. How did they carry those at such an height? Did they have cranes? So one of my colleagues said that may be the technology they had in those times was far more advanced than what we have today. And then something must have happened and would have wiped the entire civilization away, taking away all the tools and techniques along with it. Thus we start at the very beginning. This sort of makes sense, but what really struck me were the following arguments by other colleagues. They were like during the time of Mahabharata, they had wireless technology and test tube babies. The backed it up by saying how could Sanjay (chariot rider for king Dhritrashtra) could tell him what happened in the battlefield of Kurukshetra without even being anywhere near it. The test tube babies were explained by the fact that Gandhari, wife of the King Dhritrashtra, had 100 children which came all at once. So I was a little stumped and this has raised this question in my mind. Could our ancestors be so much more advanced than what we are today? Does everything really get wiped out? When will we get wiped out?

Yesterday while leaving for home, I had a very interesting conversation with my colleague. We were both talking about the increasing hours we were putting in the office and how that leaves no time for him to do anything else. He happens to be married and his wife is also a working woman, who like him puts in long hours. He mentioned to his wife about starting a family, so his wife was like..”Kids, do we have time for that?”

I honestly believe that once you have kids, then it is very much necessary for one parent to be at home. In my colleague’s case, the question becomes very difficult, who should take a step back in their careers? I guess staying in the male oriented society, it is obvious to assume that a woman should stay back and take care of the kids. But I dont think thats right. I dont think it is right to assume that women would sacrifice her career once you have a child. Even in the US, I have observed that women take a back seat when it comes to kids. I have only heard of a few cases where the wife joins the office a week or two after the birth of the child, while the husband takes care of the kid.

I dont understand.. Why is it so hard for men to take a back seat in their careers? Is it the social stigma that comes from the male not working? Or is it just pure male ego? Or is it just that men are not good at bringing up a child? I dont know. But I do know that it is not right to expect the wife to take a back seat in her career, when it comes to starting a family.

1. Why life is so complicated?
2. Why people turn mean, once they know things are not going their way?
3. Why do people fall in love only to get hurt?
4. Why is it hard to accept a NO from someone you love?
5. Why people value you after you are gone?