Memorabilia: Appendix I

Short term memory lapses lead to this post :P .. Insomnia has got nothing to do with this neither the bleak weather outside.. It's only me who gets overwhelmed with emotions and as "Forgetting" had said  I write only what is on top of my head rather than in sequence of events.. So here I go again with my failing memory for another attempt to stitch the pieces from the bygone.....

3690th day: First chance to represent my section in Inter school Quiz competition ...ohh boy I was like all grin :D :D ..tragic end.. baba could not make it :( :( and I could not appear at the event. :(

6020th day: SS was standing in from MM sir's house.. Baba talking to him and then looking at me ( meaning.. see this guys is soo good at studies and what you did the last whole month since Boards !!!).. My mind was elsewhere...ohh isn't he cute :P and he is so gullible :P :P..it will be fun to have him in the dull Ph classes...6050th day: SS did not turn up at MM Sir's classes.. called him later...he ditched and left the Ph. Tutions...such an EVIL :( :(

6140th day: My first day in school draped in Saree..it was  a red one.. you will say as always..yep has been my favourite colour since those days ...we were celebrating Teacher's day and I enjoyed a fair share of attention from the opposite sex..wasn't I glad that my parents put me in a co-ed :P :P....saw the first rays of love glistening in SS's eyes ..ohhh what a feeling !!!! Was not sure though if he was yet over with B :P

6235th day: My first ever love letter :P :P and guess what it contained , only curses :P :P I can still imagine a boy on the verge of manhood in his shaky hands unfolding a designer note , running high on his adrenalin .... :P :P only to find that this crazy girl has called him names as he had been unavailable to solve the maths "queries" she had painstakingly listed down ..she always used to do. :P How silly those days were :)

6270th day: SS' and I came back walking all the way from Ph Tuition...it became a regular event.

6525th day: TK walked me to the tuition in the rain. It was the same day I had turned him down. :( But nooo that's not the closing scene he  is one of the few friends who will still walk with me :D...He is a Great  Guy :).. 10180th day: Had a blast with TK and SB over deewali .. after a long long time..what a crazy weekend :P :P

6555th day: DB cried the most that day.. I guessed leading the school team had been a great honour for him and it pained him a lot to give over the uniform...we were all sad...but we pledged with  our young hearts to be friends forever...little did we know the world!!! ..Scene 2: In front of G Archies SS trying to console AR " Aar kandish na please PM aaschhe "( "do not cry anymore PM is coming this way") ...stupefied :P :P

7665th day: :O :O :O SS turned up at Steel House DGP ...Ohhh I can't believe my eyes !! Is it really happening ...he got brownie points to last him an entire lifetime :P :P ...Happy Birthday to me :D :D ..the best one ever ever ever .....

P.S. : Guess Appendix I was good enough to cover the blotches :P :P ..lets keep it at that :P

Memorabilia

Cut short...bullet points..days numbered...deadlines..vacations...books....mood swings...bitter fights...lattes....movies....sweet nothings....more books......goes on

910th day : Baba recording my babblings, first attempts at "Okhane ke re..aami khoka ..." the evergreen bengali rhymes .. 6600th day: heard the recording...cassette turned over to SS for making it into a CD...7330th day : cassette lost

1140th day : MC was around in the evening to play ...had a lovely time...they left...Maa spanked me hard...I wept bitterly....Baba took me up in his embrace away to the terrace..had broken all the lip shades into halves and neatly arranged them on the dressing table. :P :P :P 

2190th day: My first and last owned vehicle :P... a BSA Ladies Champ on my b'day ...yeahhh!!!!

2615th day: Annual Exams over...came back home hungry....Maa is not around...Thhakuma(grandma) not giving me lunch :( :( ....Our houseowner dida calls me out...I go to receive the call .... my brother is born 

:(..ohh not fair... I wanted a sister...  :E

2618th day: On my way to Nursing Home riding on my baba's vespa's backseat...ohh Krishna will be lifting Gandhamadhav Parvat today in Mahabharata..good for nothing fellow made me miss this episode and moreover he is not even my sister. :E :E.....enter Nursing Home room...ohh is that him...ohh he is sleeping...ohhh ..here I go mushy mushy over the li'l fellow....brother is actually better..I do not have to share my dresses and my hairbands :D

3207th day: Baba got me a lovely dress from Childcare..ohh for what...I got 99/100 in Arithmetic...big day :D [P.S. The dress which had the pastel shades of light green,sky blue,light yellow became almost my skin for next one year till I grew out of it ..literally :P]

4745th day: Making a list of 10 best friends and 10 enemies with AS :P :P..ohh she looks sooo hot these days :P

5290th day: Got my first proposal...5310th day: Got the 2nd one...5390th day:..ohhhh again...life is not that bad :P

6295th day:BIG day...SS finally mustered up all his courage to call me..wait... and proclaim my love for him...funny..nay...yeaaaah  :P...this day will go down  in history :P

6780th day: One lifetime over...the lonely part of life begins..but then again life is a circus...so hold on.

6825th day: Out side Kolkata..in the dorms of Engineering College..Baba leaving tomorrow morning ...moist eyes...MR my first friend....next to my bed ....same dept....SB is she bengali??? ..doesn't look like...ohh yeah she is..she said so..she must be....ohh who is that ? RK crying away...all red ...

6826th day: 4-30 am....its cold...can't help..have to take a bath.....6827th day: 4-30 am ..take bath...6828th day: 4-30am ..take bath ............................................

6832nd day: Ohhhh we rushing to the DGP station ..unexpected holiday ....thank you Lord Vishwakarma...homeward bound....

8390th day: Its over ...so soon...is it really !!!!!...no more La Cafe outings ...no more Chicken roll orders in study leaves...no more night outs.....no more cooing SB or MR to get over their soreness on something silly ... no more 29..... no more of giggling at SD snoozing over the Tanenbaum.... no more bitching.... no more ...no more..no more....another phase ..the end

8480th day: First job...great day....baba leaving tomorrow after dropping me of at the ladies' hostel in Ameerpet HYD...got some good pals.

8570th day - 9484th day --- ************************************************ .. frenzy..chaos..crazyness.....broken hearts....lost friends....reconnected...long nights....sulky...depressions.....counselling...cooking...moving....dejected....rejected......devout...atheist...CAT..onsite....marry....not to marry....best friend....boy friend.....drunk....hungry......and finally

Gandalf : "Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth day, at dawn look to the east"... as all stories....good ( am not sure :P) reigned over bad ( was it bad !!!!)

9587th day: D-day..."Main to ainvayi ainvayi ainvayi loot gayi.." ...

To be contd.....

A Bad Bad day at work :(

Why on earth am I in this ***** industry !!! I guess I have no one to blame but myself. I would love to have some one own up for me..ohhh I think this is the effect of the song that Suva keeps playing at the highest possible decibel these days..... " tujhpe zindagani guilty hain meri " . Can't deny it is peppy and it's clutches got to me but that does not mean I cannot complain.
I think this concept of Alchemist is so very dumb ...nothing nothing ever on this Universe conspired with me..why they are always with the opposition I never could figure it out.
Morning  never ever showed the day ...all crap....my morning began brilliantly with a cup of coffee ( diligently prepared by my dear husband every morning ..oh yeah..you must be kidding ..no I am not ) but as I said like true Chicago weather my day changed and the steaming cup of coffee lay aside on my bed tray unnoticed and so sore at my disregard that I had to render some warmth later in the day to make up with him.
One small bug rather a tiny miny one that got off unnoticed during last friday release came back to me as skunk ..oh I hate skunks :( . I am not sure what got me more perturbed that it was a Skunk or I left off the bug . Cannot be bothered whichever the reason was.
Next time I am sure to get a lucky charm for myself. 

Living Hatu Kotu's life

Well I do not exactly remember if it was Class III or IV when we first came to know about Hatu Kotu and his family.
The tale seems to have had a long lasting impression and influence on my life.
Using my memories from the Pensieve(as Dumbledore often does :)) here is the gist of the tale: Hatu Kotu and his family were from a nomadic sect who had their cattle and every winter they would move on to greener pastures. However, the idea that struck my young mind was that while on the move they wore all the clothes that they had so that they will won't have to carry those :P .

My life in Hatu Kotu's shoes :

I was born in a very old house in Ballygunge. Two rooms, a cockroach infested kitchen adjacent to the terrace more like an extended "chilekothha" -an attic was my very first home. My mother later narrated to me that she felt exactly like Aparna - (Apu's Wife from Ray's Apu-r Sonsar) when she came in to this house to stay with my father immediately after marriage. She used to peep in through the hole in the curtain at the neighborhood just like the famous scene from the movie. I started my school from here and used to commute to school in "haathe-tana" rickshwas - the hand-drawn ones which do not exist any more for good reasons I believe.

After 5 years of staying in our humble home we moved to the upper floor of  a two-storied house in GangulyBagan (further south Calcutta). Well it was a big leap and no doubt my mother was overjoyed with 3 big rooms , a clean and healthy spacious kitchen , 2 big balconies well a real home for the first time. My brother was born here. But our stay here was too short lived and we were again moving in a couple of years.
We moved absolutely to other side - the Northern part of Calcutta..on the crossing of the busy V.I.P. Bridge in Ultadanga as my father's organization came up with residential apartments for its employees. In spite of my mother's and my vehement protests  that we will be moving far from my school and our friends and relatives my father found it the best option to move. So we moved.

This time it was what we call "Flat" /"Condo" . The balcony overlooked the busy VIP bridge and we saw Nelson Mandela(when he made his trip to Kolkata) stop there and wave to us. Our stay was quite extended this time and I gave my 10th Boards Exam "Madhyamik" from here. It was quite a nice stay apart from my daily commute to school. My brother meanwhile started off with his dose of education in my school.
We stayed in "Rohini"( thats how our apartment was named) for 8 straight years and made our childhood friends, learnt to ride bicycles and hummed our fist hindi songs :). Oooh quite a lot of memories. It was time to move again. This time it was for me or rather my upcoming 12th Boards (which according to parents is the biggest eve of your growing up phase :P). My parents decided to move closer to school so that I will be able to take up tuitions and still have some time to study if I cut down on my commute time. One of my uncles had the upper most floor in their apartment empty and we moved.

We moved to South Calcutta - Deshapriya Park and stayed there for a couple of years for my 12th Boards. This stay proved to be significant for me as I found my best friend and my life partner during our stay here. As we had moved close to school my friends could come over to "study" :P . But yeah it was fun. But the fun did not last long.
As the results of Joint Entrance was out I found I had a bit more fun that I should have had and had to move to Durgapur to study Computer Science and Engineering in B.C.Roy Engineering College. While my postal address shifted to Steel House Girl's Hostel my parents shifted again to "Neelachal" Housing close to Siemens in Bosepukur.

My stay at Durgapur was predefined for 4 years but my family kept on with their tradition. After a couple of years at Neelachal (most significant incident at this stay was "Bhnarer Thakur at Bosepukur Pujo Mandap" - The pandal decorations for goddess durga was created from earthen pots which are used for drinking tea in Eastern part of India") they moved for a permanent settlement to Shaheed Nagar - our very own apartment.
My mother was the one who was most relived at this settlement and till today gives our home the highest priority well I think it comes before us :P ( do not tell her). My life in Durgapur was fun filled hostel life with too many memories to be shared here, friends for life and a whole new perspective outside home for the very first time.

Well as my parents settled down I started with my very own nomadic life. After I passed out with a B.E. degree I first started working with Satyam Computer Services Ltd. at Hyderabad. I stayed in Hyderabad for about 1.5 years( of which 2 months I was at Bhubaneshwar ) with two change of residences intra city (which I did not bother about any longer) - now the challenge was intercity or intercontinental :P. I made quite a few friends and had lot of fun as we were earning for the very first time in our life and staying away from home :P.

After 1.5 years I moved to Bangalore and stayed there for about 6 months before I took my first flight to the "States".I stayed in Milford Connecticut for about six months. I made a very good friend in my roomie and we share a very strong rapport though my stay was not that long.I went back to Hyderabad and then came to Bangalore for good and joined Iflex Solutions. This phase of my stay in Bangalore was quite entertaining and fun. I had a lovely time with our friends mostly all weekends we played a marathon of games like cards, ludo,scrabble, dumb charades and so lived life :).

Well I again changed address in Bangalore got married and was preparing to settle down but you remember Hatu Kotu right :P. His influence on me was far from being over.My dear husband got an offer from a US university and in 4 months he flew out to start of with his Ph.D curriculum. I was again left to wonder :(.
Recession had hit big by that time and I was stuck with saving my job. A year later I flew for a couple of months in summer with my husband.In those two months we also enjoyed a vacation in Europe for a couple of weeks. I was revitalized to go back and again fight :P.

Finally persuasion and persistence and patience gave way :) .A year later I flew back to the States with my job but I was put up in Columbus, Ohio  while my husband was staying in Evanston, Illinois.
We kept travelling back and forth on weekends for about 6 months when on a fateful day I returned from work to find my apartment in Columbus broken in :( . I was scared. I literally cried after ages. Called 911 ,waited for the maintenance to come and fix the door which was ripped apart badly. I stayed with a colleague of mine that night. Next morning I took the first flight out to Chiacgo.
Well I spoke to my manager and told him that I was too scared to go back and after a couple of months they let me know the officially that I could stay on in Chiacgo and Work From home :) :). Finally I was re united with my husband.

Amidst all these move ins and move outs the little girl who was struck with wonder that Hatu Kotu and his family wore all their clothes while moving came to understand the significance of it :P. All these years since my own nomadic life I have built up a huge variety of wardrobe ranging from Ethnic Indian to ballroom dresses to gypsy trinkets to loose pajamas and very many types of satchels and shoes and slip ins...you name the types and likely I will have one of its kind from some part of the world. Alas!! when the occasion arises I am completely lost as to where my dress is or where is that matching green earring and at times I have completely forgotten that I had something like that. And on a Saturday afternoon when I sit down to pack for a move again I have a big glee on my face at the sight of so many long lost precious knick-knacks and some exquisite shrug (which at the time of buying I had to have) with still its tag on it . I make it a point to remember each and every time as to which suitcase I am putting my purple cashmere or my green matching slip ins or the cross body "jhola" purses from Goa.If and only if I had a RAM to the order of GB to rise to the occasion :(. Hence the prudence of Hatu Kotu appeals to me and I wish I could do that. :P

But wait our story continues...we are heading west to Santa Clara for three months (my husband has an internship there) and then in September we are moving apartment in Evanston once we are back :P.
So long Hatu Kotu lives with me :)

First ever

Yipppee...I finally pushed myself hard enough to start off...Well yes this is my first ever blog :D.

I am quite new to the idea to have my thoughts shared .

Well, truly speaking am still a bit apprehensive about the "thought" that now my "thoughts" will not be entirely mine but will be read and judged :P. But I found out that I really like going through people's thoughts and feeling their lows and highs.

So finally and finally I brushed aside my worst fears and started dropping in the letters. I am hoping to have a long roller coaster ride ...so hold on strong to the rails...here we go !!!!!