Been a while hasn't it!

Just been busy as hell, and lazy when I did get the time, the last couple of months have been crazy, seems like this monkey won't just let go off my back!! Hehe...it's strange, I know no one's looking, and I know no one needs me to explain, but I still am doing it...inherent quality??? I definitely suppose so. In the last month or so I definitely have been explaining a lot to myslef about the ups and downs in my life, so much so, I think I've another bad habit to shake off now!

Well, life really does seem like a walk on the tight rope now, and all I can do is hope to get my act together before I fall off. So many things to do and so less time...I find myself saying this more often than ever. I hate this stage of my life, sometimes I wish I cud skip a few steps ahead and just get to the good part...but on second thoughts...if I skipped this stage of my life.... I probably won't have any good parts to skip ahead to! Is life complicated, or do I just do that to myself????

Couple of good things have happened though, for one, I have fallen in love with my nephew, I miss him like crazy now that I am away from him, and just cant wait to see him again. AND...I have fallen in love again! but this time with my almost ex girlfriend :) Yeah we were having issues, but it all worked out for the better (mostly coz she is just the best girlfriend ever!).

Another thing I am happy about is my trip to India. It turned out to be pretty eventful. There was a surprise surgery for Mom that sprang up, and then there were endless hours at my dad's office, helping him setup his newest BPO operation (seems more like an obsession these days with striving businessmen!). Well, all for the better though, mom is recovering slowly but surely and should be here sometime towards the end of Oct. likewise for dad...so good times seem to be just around the corner, coz as soon as they come I fly to CA and get to see my darling nephew again :)

A vacation it was to be....

Or so I thought! When I finally set out for my 5 week vacation in mumbai, little did I know that the path was going to be treacherous and filled with dragons and goblins!! After boarding my plane in JFK, the flight didnt take off for almost one hour after the departure time, reason: A lady with her new born baby was on her way and was stuck in traffic, so 200 odd people were made to wait for her!!! Anyways, once we finally took off, it only then dawned upon me that my connecting flight from Paris was only 45mins after this flight landed. Almost immediately I knew that missing my flight was inevitable, however a Sindhi lady who was sitting behind me assured me that they would wait as there are many passengers who would be boarding that plane. With that matter laid to rest I proceeded to enjoy the rest of my flight to Paris.

Come morning, as we landed in Paris, I looked at my watch and it seemed like touch n go, but I really thought it was going to be Ok as I was accompanied by almost a dozen other desis. But it wasnt meant to be....upon reachin the terminal we found out that the flight had in fact taken off and Air France couldnt make the other 200 passengers wait for another 10mins for a handful of Indians (talk abt racism!) So after much anguish we were finally told that we wud be put up in a hotel, and the lady at the terminal was kind enough to make a transit visa with all our names on it. Only trouble we all had to be together at all times! I dont think anyone cared, neither did I. Having found a friend in the crowd I set out with him for a little sight seeing, and I saw the Eiffel tower. Never thought it would be with a complete stranger by my side :). The hotel was decent, but the food was horrible, but it was just one night so what the heck! Anyways, thinking that I am to meet up with the rest of the crowd at 7am next morning I head to my room, only to find an over anxious member from the gujju family who decided at the spur of the moment that we all should leave at 6, I agreed! The following morning however we made the mistake of leaving for the airport without one of the family's (once again on persuasion of the over anxious gujju). End result: nightmare at CDG!! Immigration officers take us to the side and refuse to let us thru until everyone whose names are on the visa is present, several attempts to contact the estranged family were futile...and then the unthinkable....that woman with her kids had somehow gone thru immigration without a visa and was actualy at the gate before all of us!!!! So after duly ntifying the authorities we were allowed to go thru!! I couldnt wait for the flight to take off, and when I finally reached mumbai I could only wish that things hadnt been so messed up. The silver lining to all this was that I got the chance to fly with an Indian model (who was very sick...she had a cold) so things werent all that bad!!!

So I finally am in mumbai after much anguish and dragon slaying...just hope its smooth sailing from here on!!!

The worst one month ever!!!

It was exactly a month ago when I thought to myself that it would be really nice if I could manage a trip back to good ol' Mumbai before I started getting my hands dirty with the daunting task of job hunting after graduating from my Masters, little did I know that the path was going to be so treacherous and filled with surprises (yep, just like a good old story book!). It was since the beginning of July that slowly but surely my life seemed to self destruct. Things started going wrong as though fate had some elaborate plans to drown me in the quicksands of misfortune.

One fine morning I awoke to the ghastly and rude shock of becoming a victim of identity theft. My credit card number had been stolen, and of course the thief already had procured his spoils before he finally discovered that the card had been maxed out when he tried to fill gas in his car(details courtesy of Citibank who had no idea about what was happening until I alerted them to it, so much for ID protection!). So with my card becoming disfunct I now had to purely rely on my cash resources (which I didnt have much of now that I had to buy my ticket to India with cash and no credit). Shaken but not stirred I put this episode behind me and continued to live life as though all was fine, and then came the fateful day when one of my dad's client sends me a chq as per my dad's instructions (since I had asked my dad for money). Delighted with my new found wealth I deposit the check only to find out after 4 days that both me and my dad had been had.....the check was a counterfeit!!! Citibank promptly shut down my account and refunded the rest of my balance to me (all of $28). Now I was thoroughly shattered and upto my neck in frustration....everything seemed to be falling apart, I gave up all hope and sat there a dejected man. My only shimmer of happiness was that I would be going back home on the 13th of July....or so I thought! July 8th, I receive a call from my girlfriend who wants my passport number as she is filling out our change of address forms (I recently moved to a new place), I look for my passport and cant find it, panic stricken I continue to look but its no use...the house is turned upside down but there is no trace of my passport. I knew this was it, my life was coming to an end. with all hopes lost I went to bed as a defeated man, and within my head I was thinking about my lost trip to India, a possible decline for a new Visa to come back to USA and all sorts of things, and there was no hope....I could have died (but instead I just yawned and went to bed...no use staying up, right???). Come morning my girlfriend frantically tries to wake me up....she had found the passport...there was no better news that I could have heard that day. Soon enough I also had refund checks from school which put some money on my pockets....so after one month of anguish things finally started to fall in place.....but this is one experience I would never want to relive...this was by far the worst month ever in my life!!!

Prepping for home...

Its exactly 1 fortnight plus another 5 days before I leave to go back home for a long awaited vacation (so to speak!), and amongst all the feverish excitement of getting back to fairground, there is this cacophony of countless thoughts in my head over which I seem to have no control whatsoever! These are thoughts about things I have to do, things I want to do, things I must do and the list just goes on!!!

It seems as though going back home from the US is almost a ritual, governed by protocols which have become norm due to repeated fulfillment by everyone who goes back home!! There are the long shopping lists, feverish last minute shopping for gifts and last but not least maybe the selection of attire so that you look like your coming back from here (or maybe that's just me!)

I just hope I can get everything done before I leave, especially my 2 projects which I have been working on for almost 3 months now!!!

Sometimes I can just go nuts!!

Its exactly 1 fortnight plus another 5 days before I leave to go back home for a long awaited vacation (so to speak!), and amongst all the feverish excitement of getting back to fairground, there is this cacophony of countless thoughts in my head over which I seem to have no control whatsoever! These are thoughts about things I have to do, things I want to do, things I must do and the list just goes on!!!

It seems as though going back home from the US is almost a ritual, governed by protocols which have become norm due to repeated fulfillment by everyone who goes back home!! There are the long shopping lists, feverish last minute shopping for gifts and last but not least maybe the selection of attire so that you look like your comeing back from here (or maybe that's just me!)

I just hope I can get everything done before I leave, especially my 2 projects which I have been working on for almost 3 months now!!!

What does it take.....?

Its exactly 1.45 am, and I have a zillion questions in my head right now starting with "What does it take.....??"

Would be hard to enumerate all of them, but here is one which seems to be perched on the edge of my forebrain "What does it take to go to bed knowing you should probably not go to sleep right now?". This would be a thought for every person on this planet who knows he/she is trying to grab 40 winks even though something is left unaccomplished!

Whilst my 4 odd years of engineering this question seemed to linger every 4 months in my head when I was preparing for exams and uncountable KTs. Today I have it in my head again.

P.S. This is my first BLOG ever, thought I would give it a shot :), hence the title!