Anamika

I couldn't find a suitable title for this blog. Hence the anonymous - Anamika.

The name reminds me of a Sanjeev Kumar movie with the song "Anamika". Lovely song.

No, let me call this -- random mutterings.

I happened to read a blog topic on "Life after marriage", penned nicely. I got the link of this blog from another blog I frequently visit. Given below are the links to the blogs.

Source blog
Blog being talked about

Note: It will be better to give a cursory glance of the blogs given above to grasp the context of my current blog.

Well when i was reading about the Life after... blog, I found one of the comments very interesting. One of the readers, apart from agreeing with the author on the topic, threw in a new line of thought. She spoke about how most women (rather girls :-) ) change from being the ambitious type to the concern laden types who put their careers on the back burners to fulfill family needs. That seemed to strike a similar chord with my opinion too.

I have personally felt that change. There have been many instances when I have actually felt like throwing up a good job to be near my family. Recent weeks have set me thinking about the need for further education, the time involved in the whole process, the long separation it will create from my family and the overall futility of the whole process. After mulling over all this, I even came to a decision that I shall stop further work on the application process. If someone had even suggested the above points to me earlier (read pre-marriage), I would have given them a dirty stare and pointed out hundreds of flaws in their reasoning (which i did with my parents !!!).

My attituted surely seems to have changed after marriage. Is being less career driven and more drawn towards family a bad sign ? I am leaving it to the best judge to decide ------- Time.

Anagrams

I was going through this
Anagram Server .

Sankha had given this anagram earlier to me:
" Go King Odolo West Ye ! "

Any guesses as to how else the above phrase can be rearranged !!

Hyderabad blues

Don't worry, this is not going to be a review of the movie that hit the theatres in the late 90s. Rather this blog is more about the blues hyderabadis (and current residents of the city) are facing because of the traffic chaos.

Driving in hyderabad is dangerous especially on the "route" leading towards Hitech City (note the singular form of the word route). Just imagine a whole community of IT guys have to reach their destination by 9.00 a.m sorts. And what has the friendly traffic department done. No, I am not questioning and asking what they have done. On a fine sunny morning, MONDAY, they have made the entire stretch of the Hitech route ONE-WAY. Chaos, that is the only word I can use to sum up what happened on that balmy day. I developed a severe headache finding out a decent navigation route and ended up in office late (that doesn't matter) wondering what all that was about.

The evening scenario was no different. All buses, trucks, Scorpios, small cars, motorbikes, even the cyclists competing with each other to get on to the bylanes. End result, all commuters, residents staying in the peaceful bylanes of Hitech suffered and the traffic policemen suffered.

I heard from one of the traffic policemen that this was going to be a permanent traffic arrangement. By making the roads one way, how has the traffic been regulated. It has just got diverted to the parallel roads. Oh, i forgot to mention that the one way rules are imposed according to timings. 9.00 a.m to 12.00 p.m, road is one way allowing vehicles "from" Hitech towards other locations in the city and evenings, from 4.00 p.m to 9.00 p.m, vehicles from all other locations in the city can go to Hitech.

Do these rules make some sense to you ? It doesn't sound logical to me ...

--------- Thoughts penned by a vexed victim

Raindrops

When I am on a philosophical note, I ponder about life and what it means to me.

Once when i was casually browsing through Reader's Digest, I glanced upon a beautiful advertisement. It was from Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and had a picture of a tree branch after a heavy rain, overladen with raindrops. One drop was just on the verge of seggregating from the branch. And a caption below read -
"That's Life"

An excellent advertisement as it conveyed lot of meaning in the allotted small space in a magazine. Some of the ad.s on the TV are also great. Just like the majority of the TV viewers, Hutch's ad. is on my top favorites list. Nice song too.."Raindrops are falling...."

I have mused too much about raindrops. Getting back to the original question of what life means to me, i m still pondering..... :-)

Untouchable

I happened to browse through the photo galleries of National Geographic. This picture captivated my attention - for obvious reasons.

A Picture says a thousand words

This was the cover story in the magazine on Untouchables in India.
Cover Story : Untouchable

I had read this entire strip in the magazine. Quite a detailed and elaborate coverage provided to one of the burning issues in india.

Purposes

After my earlier blog on Future, Blah, Blah .. i had taken some action towards achieving "it" (- "the Goal") instead of pushing it aside as just a "possible dream". Not at all a bad show for one lazy bum like me.

Well that has brought me to writing the statement of purpose essays :-) Here is where i am stuck now. If only i knew what is the purpose of my life (or should i have used "purpose in my life" ???) wouldn't I be writing / doing something better than mulling over my "probable" bright future . :-)

When it comes to expressing yourself in prose, you should be either a writer gifted with lucid thinking or a glib liar. Its a pity, I am neither. One of my friends put the same idea across to me, rather rudely. Well, he said instead of writing sob stories about how your life stinks in your blog, put in some effort to create an equally powerful SOP. On second thoughts, not a bad piece of advice but sadly it is difficult for a person like me. I have been sitting and brooding over this "Purpose" question for so long that i have become totally haphazard with my daily life.

Its true that our every action shadows a purpose but should it necessarily be a strong , logical one. How i wish, i could just say, i did some act 1 b'coz i had nothing else to do. Simple and true. But no one wants simplicity. Grandeur seems to be the rage.

Let me make a move from this purposeless chatter to the task of getting out a verbose SOP :-)

Should be ready with one sooner.

Darby and Joan

"Pop" into my inbox came this Word for the day from one of the word mailing groups - "Darby and Joan "

According to definition, it refers to a happily married old couple. The origin according to the mail had been from a poem titled
"The Joys of Love never forgot. A Song" written by Henry woodfall.

One verse in the poem reads “Old Darby, with Joan by his side, You’ve often regarded with wonder: He’s dropsical, she is sore-eyed, Yet they’re never happy asunder.”

Unlike movies like "Baghban" where the oldies romance is exaggerated to the point of irritation, this simple verse of the poem brings about the warmth of love in a much better and elegant fashion.

This reminded me of the movie "Notting Hill" .(One of my all time favorites) There is a scene where Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant jump into a park in the night and take a stroll. There they come across a bench with the following engraving:
"For June who loved this garden from Joseph who always sat beside her."
And Julia says "Some people do spend their whole lives together."

Another Darby and Joan there :-)

Btw for Notting Hill lovers like me, i found this nice website:
Memorable Quotes from Notting Hill

Hoping that i and sankha will become the Darby and Joan couple.

Forces of Nature

National Geographic is a great magazine. I have always had special preference to this magazine. I found this nice animation clip at the magazine's website.

Forces of Nature

Each clip describes about a specific force of nature. Truly brilliant and very informative.

WWW links

Some articles which came in the magazines about the work i am doing :

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/04/09/stories/2005040901051700.htm

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20050718&fname=Hinovation&sid=1

Hats off

Loyalty does earn its award ......
or should i put it as
Patience does pay
:-)

Whichever .... My company is putting me on its "loyal" bandwagon and giving me an award today.

If loyalty is to be rewarded then my parents should have been rewarded innumerable times to exemplify theirs. :-)

But let me not reduce my achievement for the day by making comparisons.
Sankha has also got his loyalty / patience award today.
Kudos to us !!!!
Accounting both of our work experience in years, we have contributed eight solid years to our company.

Now, aren't we the loyal and the patient couple. ;-)

College Bonds

I have always heard "wows" from people when i have mentioned my college name. It used to give me a momentary sense of pride to hear those appreciations. But i have never understood what that name, rather brand, can actually fetch me.
More than the temporary praises, it brings in tremendous amount of help, information and knowledge from the alumni. And i have realised this when i am in the quest for such information.

A BIG THANKS to my college alumni. Its more like the network is omniscient. They can help you with any meaningful task, open a whole wide field of information that you didn't know existed.

Thanks to my alma mater... it feels nice to be a BITSIAN and an ex- BITSIAN :-)

Future, I seek thee

Its high time i start deciding about my future. Most of the people close to me have been posing the dreaded question - "So, what are your future plans ?" in its original and variant forms.

I have just embarked on the process of "doing" something about this matter. (Atleast i need to have a definite answer the next time this question pops up :-) ).

I have climbed onto step 1 after writing a qualifying exam. Now, next step demands another exam. After that lies long, winding steps of the actual process itself.
In a similar fashion to "A small step , a giant leap for mankind", i have made my small jump. But there has been no giant leap, the rest of the steps have also got to be managed by self. Hopefully, i will retain the vigor and complete the needful in another 2/3 months.


All the best to me to go through this ordeal. Future, here i come......

A Clean Roof over the Head

Yes that is what i want now. I have grown so very tired of the rodent infested roof top at my current residence that i have decided to move away from that place. Rats, not the stars, seem to be holding and pulling the strings of my life. :-(

Blog Search

Sankha told me about this link..

http://www.technorati.com

Its fun to search for "blogs" of your choice.

Laws of Nature

We don't have to be a Mendle or a Newton to observe and infer from nature. We don't even have to make significant "discoveries" and contribute to the world's knowledge pool. We will do ourselves a big help by first helping ourself.

I had recieved the following story via email. Maybe it will enlighten a very simple law of nature to us ....

Take a look at an apple tree. There might be five hundred apples on the tree, but each apple has just ten seeds. That's a lot of seeds!

We might ask, "Why would you need so many seeds to grow just a few more apple trees?"
Nature has something to teach us here. It's telling us: "Not all seeds grow. In life, most seeds never grow. So if you really want to make something happen,
you had better try more than once."

This might mean : You'll attend twenty interviews to get one job. You'll interview forty people to find one good employee. You'll talk to fifty people to sell one
house, one car, one vacuum cleaner, one insurance policy, or a business idea. And you might meet a hundred acquaintances just to find one special friend.

When we understand the "Law of the Seed", we don't get so disappointed. We stop feeling like victims. We learn how to deal with things that happen to us. Laws
of nature are not things to take personally. We just need to understand them - and work with them.

Pure breed Vs Hybrid

Much to my joy, i have been making more trips to chennai lately. Had been to chennai for the past two days. Spent time with my parents and brother. Wanted to catch a tam. rajini movie running in the theatres (to get the same old feel of the tam. spirit :-) ) but then my brother has become very busy with his work. He has no time for such trivial things these days. I made myself happy by listening to the non-stop FM channels.

My husband was amazed to see me dressed as this typical tam. girl. I think the atmosphere sorts of gets into u. Rather into ur skin. With lot of coaxing from my mother and my aunt (mother's sister) i got dressed to their likes (to the great dislike of my husband.. he was giving me d looks !!!).. Why is it that people want everyone around them to be garbed in the way as them (or should it be themselves ?? effect of extra doses of english grammar)

Oh, sankha was feeling happy that he got nice deals on some mp3 and CDs in chennai. He influenced my father to such an extent that the very next day my father took me to the same shop to buy some CDs for his personal collection.

Anyway, all said and done, quite a nice trip. Now, let me get back to my work of writing on an issue.

Next issue topic, i think the second in line:

"Instead of requiring students to take courses in a variety of disciplines—that is, courses ranging from the arts and the humanities to the physical and biological sciences—colleges and universities should allow students to enroll only in those courses that will help prepare them for jobs in their chosen fields. Such concentration is necessary in today's increasingly work-oriented society."

Half baked knowledge is dangerous. True but equally dangerous is absolute ignorance. In my view point, students should be exposed to a variety of disciplines but to a certain level. In today's technologically progressing society, barring a few extremely different disciplines, there are no distinct demarcations between others. Most of the sciences tend to overlap or rather merge at boundaries. Limited understanding of such overlapping subjects will prepare students better for their future jobs in their chosen fields.

My university believes in the principle of imparting knowledge of every overlapping or common field to students. The educational curriculum of my university is excellent as it imparts both generalized and specialized knowledge for all the students. Every fresher has to undergo a certain prescribed set of courses in the first two years. During the second year term, they are gradually exposed to some of their chosen field subjects. At the end of the second year, the students are given a choice to decide about their specialization. Those students who find their pre-selected specialization interesting continue with teh same field and those find some other field more absorbing are given the option to move into that field. All subjects in the third and fourth years are entirely dedicated to their specialized fields. This way the students can exert their own volition to choose their future career and also they have a broad understanding of how other fields work or operate.

Extending this scenario in my personal case, let me explain as to how i found it beneficial. Armed with Pharmacy and Biotechnology degrees, i decided to work in the upcoming field of Bioinformatics. When i joined my present employer, a software consultancy company, i was easily able to understand the computer concepts and college level mathematical and statistical concepts, which were prerequisites for my job. Apart from understanding, it made communication with my engineering colleagues very easy and smooth. I found the knowledge that i had gained at college very helpful in my work life.

I have seen many a pure science graduate, who find working in an industry ver y difficult. Also, the opportunities available to them gets drastically reduced. An industry is an amalagation of various forms of knowledge and technologies. In a quest to make pure breeds of professionals, one should not miss out on utilising the versatility of the hybrids.

----------------------------------------------------

End of the issue topic.
------------------------------

Weekend atlast. How i wish i could sleep off the entire saturday and sunday. But no i cannot.

"I have promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep."

;-)
Promises to myself. Another 15 days and then, ah , i can see heaven !!!

New resolution

I have decided to take up an issue everyday and express my opinion about it. This is to hep me improve my writing, formulating ideas and commenting.

So, here i go ..............

"Creating an appealing image has become more important in contemporary society than is the reality or truth behind that image."

First impressions always matter. Oscar Wilde was of the opinion that only shallow people don' go by appearances. With appearances being given so much of importance, it should not come as a surprise that many people, corporations and societies resort to fabuluous displays. Whether all such displays are just ostentatious is a matter to be considered.

I would not state that the entire society has become ostensible. There are always cases where what is displayed is what is valued. Lot of big corporations lay stress on ethics and proper code of conduct. When ethics come into picture, ostentation doesn't stand a chance. When corporations deal with stakeholders or with other clients, they cannot take a huge risk of creating a false image. Once the false image is exposed, then the trust of the stakeholders, clients and society at large is lost. And that is a very heavy price to pay. The organisation i work for places a lot of importance on values, ethics and integrity. These are upheld as prime values of the company. Organisations which command reverence from the society would never stick to false proclamations or impressions.

Looking at a microscopic level, people with their values indeed make or mar a society. There has always been a feeling that celebrities lead a false life. Driven by the lust to potray their lives as successful, many end up creating appealing images to the public. Most of their personal lives is out in the electronic or print media, thus creating a misconstrued feeling that all celebrities without exceptions lead such glass-like lives. There are quite a few of the theatre personalities who have taken up and fought for certain genuine causes. Few of the popstars have decided to conduct musical performances to raise money for the tsunami victims.

Not all that glitters is gold but it doesn't necessarily mean that glittering gold is a fantasy.

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Comments are welcome.

Paradox

"What are you after in life, Priya? Deep down, are your most intimate desires satisfied by the kind of work you have decided to do? The little problems you encounter in your professional life this week could be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Take a look around you to see just how much the work you do, and how much the people in your personal life take into account your profoundly spiritual nature."

No one is preaching to me. These were my astrological predicions for the day. More than just satisying my naive curiosity, today's prediction has actually forced me to think.

There has been a lot of change happening at my workplace. Lot of people whom i had been working with for the past 3 years have left. Now we are just a group of three instead of the original 35. This just gives me a feeling of stagnation. A rather sedantry work life.

If no change is equivalent to being stable or steady then that is what my work life promises to be. In our lives, aren't we all trying to settle down or stabilize somewhere ? Then why does the current stability in my work hurt me so much ? Why do i crave for change ? Why should i ask for a bit of perturbance ?

Paradoxical desires !!!

Answer to the final question ??

I have a habit of jotting down quotes, questions, statements, ... rather any kind of utterance made by people, if i find them interesting and stimulating. Presently i have a substantial collection of such jottings. When i was going through my office papers, i chanced upon this specific statement:

"A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the 'why' for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any 'how'. "

Simple yet profound !!! Perhaps the answer to the ultimate question :-)

Insults

As the last week was dedicated to words used as insults in a famous mailing list on "words" , i added 6 new words to my very own "insults" dictionary :-)
Added to that one of the members of the mailing list provided this nice link which displays insults from Shakespeare's works.

Shakespearean Insults

Another member of the same mailing list reproached the entire idea. And as a mark of disapproval removed herself from the list. She had felt "insulted" being a part of such a mailing list.

And me, on the other hand, felt quite excited about improving my vocab. :-)