Breakfast, Hard work pays and Email banter

1. Breakfast is still hot when I go to the cafetaria.
2. A colleague comes to me with questions and I sit with her for almost an hour, explaining various things. At the end, she asks me how long I have been working on this system. A little more than 6 months, I tell her. She's surprised - "That's it? Only 6 months? But you seem to know this stuff!" I'm gratified by this statement.
3. There's a fun email exchange going on with Aditi. Its a pity I can't state here what we're discussing!

Happy day, random gems and negotiation

1. I feel light today. I put in 12 hours of work, but even in the 12th hour, I find myself humming a tune while sitting at my desk. I like days when it's easy to smile. People seem to irritate me not quite as much as they have done in the past week or so.
2. Manjiri writes me a random email. It ends with: Found this today - 'the tailors measured him just for the sake of excercise these days.' Wodehouse, who else?
3. A super tight deadline has been negotiated and I suddenly realise that I no longer need to work on Christmas... Lesson learnt - ask! negotiate! Especially when the present scenario can't get any worse. A painstakingly composed email sent last night did the trick.

No motion sickness, rasgullas and inbox

1. I come home from a completely uneventful bus journey. NO bus sickness at all this time! How cool is that?!
2. Kris has brought some really soft and succulent rasgullas to office today, because it was his birthday on Sunday. I make at least 3 trips to his desk at different times of the day to pop one in my mouth. Ok, technically, one can't just 'pop' it in, it would be too messy, but I usually squeeze the excess juice out of it so that it has just the right amount of sweetness and then bite into it.
3. For 4 days, I haven't checked my email, so I login a few minutes ago, with great expectations. I'm not let down. Apart from the usual promotional emails, there are a few personal ones from friends too.

To the grind, Smita and panache

1. There's so much work, I'm having to keep my nose to the grind. I'm kinda enjoying it.
2. After many months, Smita has been emailing. Her familiar frank style reminds me of the good long chats we used to have when she was here. Has it really been two and a half years?!
3. Ocean's Twelve. I just love their style and panache!
   
   

Tomatoes, one of those people and pining

1. Pallavi emails to tell me about how her experiments with cooking turned out. Let me just quote her: well it was a decent meal though I realized that my rajma and paneer both turned out to have excess tomatoes!!! So it was an extremely tomaty (if that’s a word) dinner!!!! I like that word. Tomaty... hmmm...
2. In the same email, comes another statement. You're becoming like those people who go to Goa at least once a year, she tells me. Well, this is the second consecutive year... and I'm rather pleased about it! But next year, I'll go some place else.
3. Dipti is engaged and her fiance has gone off to the US. He'll only come back for the wedding now, which is to be held either in February or March. She sits at her desk looking all forlorn (and extremely funny) and says "How will I wait four months to see him?"

Better than you, riddle and security

1. I meet Pankaj in the gym who tells me he has been asked to lose 10 kgs. What are you doing here? Have you been asked to lose weight too? he asks... I smirk, and tell him (truthfully, by the way), that I'm not overweight. I'm here to tone myself up and lose the lethargy. Evil laughter (mine) follows.
2. Why is it that after a workout in the gym I actually feel more energetic rather than exhausted?
3. A friend (identity concealed to protect privacy) emails to say that she's in an anti-social, shun-all-human-contact mode currently. She hastens to add that I needn't worry, I'd never fall in that category ever.

Recovery, important(?) day and melody

1. Because I finally get a good night's sleep, the fatigue that had accumulated over the past couple of days reduces somewhat and I atleast feel human again (though I doubt I look it...)
2. First Gauri sends an email: "Birthday Reminder - 30th May is Gaurav's Happy Birthday. You have received this email because you are among those lucky few who know Gaurav. Wishes will be accepted as cards or flowers. Those outside Pune may wish via email or telephone. This is an auto-generated email." Not content that the message has gotten across, a text message arrives a few hours later. It reads: "Hi. how are you doing? I hope you are ready for the big day. The day that brought a new ray of hope for everyone, the day that saw the birth of a legend, the day that marked the begining of a new era. Yes it is 30th May. Please make sure that your cards and flowers are ready by then. P.S. Outstation ppl can convery der wishes by call or email."
3. While driving back home, a sweet melody is being played on the radio. Aapki aankhon mein kuchh...

Is it bad luck, desparate and hats off

1. I cross a black cat's path and wonder if it will have bad luck now...
2. Desparate Housewives - who ever thought of such a twisted plot?? And then put it forth so funnily?
3. An email from Seema tai which says 'hats off to you, woman' in response to the scuba diving pics that I sent her

Fresh n fragrant, nostalgia and evening nap

1. My clothes that have been laundered here at the hotel have a delightful fragrance that fills the wardrobe... and when I use the fresh towels, or put on one of the blouses or T-shirts over my head, I like to take a deep breath.
2. Seema Tai, one of my cousins who used to be in Jerusalem very many years ago is thrilled by the pictures I send her, and writes me an email saying how she is reliving all her old days through my pictures.
3. I come back to the hotel early today, because I have a headache, and catch up on some badly needed sleep. I wake up feeling much better, and then have some hot lemon tea... the vapours waft through to my nose, and it feels so good on a chilly evening.

Dance with me, net-savvy and Has It!

1. The mindblowing dance sequences in Dance With Me. The plot is nothing to write home about, but the dances...! My eyes have trouble following the dancers as they fluidly and furiously move. It seems impossible that two people can move with such grace, synch, and speed, but they do! And the result is spectacular....
2. Mum is becoming net-savvy! Her emails pop up in the middle of the day, these days. Today she writes to tell me that my pictures from Ganpatipule have come out beautifuland that my grandmother loved them too..
3. I love my new jeans! The fabric has lycra so that it stretches and is soooo very comfortable!

Splendid, soppy and finally!

1. Being so involved in a book that I forget time. The culprit is A Thousand Splendid Suns.
2. Sending super-senti forwards to Shenoy and telling him to pass them on to his fiancee. He's far away from me, but I can imagine the look on his face when he tells me there's no way he's going to send them.
3. A long awaited invitation finally comes... and the fourth trip home is happening! I'm keeping my fingers crossed till my tickets come!

Sunshine, pisces and some curry

1. An early morning (according to Rashmi std time, of course) phone call and an inbox full of emails ensure that the day remains bright and sunny for me.
2. Shenoy sends me Linda Goodman's description of a Piscean woman and wants to know if it fits me. I'm quite amused.
3. I get to catch up on my favourite blogs. Youth Curry has a very interesting post.

Higgeldy-piggeldy, creation and blessed technology

1. Aditi's curls. They're all higgeldy-piggeldy and toss around crazily when she jumps and runs, which she constantly does.
2. There is immense satisfaction in creating something. I have a whole afternoon stretching ahead of me with nothing to do. On a whim, I sit down to paint a watercolour. The result is a sunflower against a grassy field and a blue sky. I think it's rather nice... I just love the translucent and soft quality that watercolours have...
3. Technology. Once I'm done with the painting, I badly want to show it to someone, but ofcourse I'm alone at home... but there's my DSLR which will take a very faithful picture of the watercolour, and there's the internet. Out goes an email to my parents, and they see it right away...

Lovely pictures, LRG and catching up

1. Receiving a lot of mails telling me that my Goa pictures have come out splendid.
2. Harshal sends a long email, which starts with a 'Hey LRG!'. LRG stands for 'Little Radical Girl' - something he's called me since we've known each other, more than 5 years ago. Sounds funny now - I'm neither very radical any more, nor do I fit the bill for 'little'! But I still love the way he insists on calling me that :-)
3. Chatting with Aparna after what seems like ages... well naturally, it has been ages! She's off on a vacation soon and sounds pretty excited...

Internet, retail therapy and Poirot

1. The internet. What a blessing it is.
2. Going grocery shopping to Food Bazar. I enter feeling quite irritable and somewhere in the aisles of the supermarket, checking out merchandise, freebies and discounts, I lose the irritation and come out feeling quite content. That's retail therapy in action for you...
3. Reading Agatha Christie's Poirot mysteries. The pace is usually slow, but the books are nonetheless charming. They take me back to my school days when I'd read them all.

YoMo, Best of now and round the corner

1. YoMo a.k.a Yo Monkey, a little stuffed monkey wearing a tiger-striped jacket with a hood, who hangs from a hook near my desk is a source of much joy. We picked him up at Big Bazar when we went to get a gift for Kaushik... and Dharana has been thretening to abduct him ever since. Incidentally, she's behind his christening too - 'he's so Yo! with the hood, he'll start rappin any moment' is the explanation that has been given...
2. Now's The Time. I've been following Joe's blog ever since I started writing my own 3BTs, but somehow never mentioned him here. Today, when I catch up with his posts after having slipped on reading his blog for nearly 10 days, I rediscover my reasons for loving his blog - the rich variety of things he always has to write about, the very different culutre and life style that I get to peep into, and if I may be so bold as to say this - a strange bond that binds two so vastly different people, separated by continents and age into something akin to friendship. I again scroll down to read what he has to say in about himself - 'I was a journalist but now spend more time writing poetry and growing vegetables.' - and I'm first struck by the seeming incongruity between writing poetry and growing vegetables, and then I wonder if both aren't inherently forms of creating something and nurturing something....
3. An email gives me a fresh perspective on success - 'success may be waiting just round the corner'. I'm told, that success will come to he that will dare to turn the corner, deviating from the straight and trodden path, onto a mysterious and unknown way, with courage. And soon, even the corners which earlier slowed him down will give him the winning edge, while the others, who stuck to the beaten 'straight' path will be left far behind. Funny. I somehow always took this phrase to mean that success was lurking around the corner, hiding from sight, waiting to pounce on me. All I had to do was manage to keep walking... but now I must turn around corners too??