Off-note

Trying to get some peace of mind by flushing out my endless- meaningless thoughts!
Disclaimer: Bad thoughts ahead!!!
I think I have a lot of time and not much things to do and I am playing with my mind with lot of un-wanted feelings. A feeling of being not wanted anywhere is nothing new to me, but these days it is pocking its nose in my life a lot more than usual. This feeling got real boosters with things that happened over last weekend. After a small debate over whether to go or not, I ended up in a small lunch out with a group of people, whom already gave me a farewell just three weeks back!
From the group, the moment I arrived, I started getting questions (On a funny note) r u still here? I’m shocked to see you here! Oh my god, I never knew you are goanna be here! Some people just stopped with a surprise look! It is all funny but some where it gets into one’s nerves when we don’t have any other thing on mind. The worst part was to end up watching a movie which was close to a porno movie in the near by theatre with the same group. I felt the genre of the movie going bad from the initial scenes and walked out, but later learned that it was freaking stuff. I think it added to my burning disgusting feeling over ‘me’ to end up there. Some how I manage to end up in the wrong place in the wrong time with the wrong mind set.
The feeling of being not wanted around is not one which is easy to get over. This is one of most overly rated feeling in the IT community where it is very difficult to identify friends over colleagues. In this IT-culture we end up with a group of people on a foreign country just because we have to work together! After being tied up with the same people for a period of time, some how our mind starts to treat them as friends. This mistake I do again and again but never learned ‘how to keep people out of my heart’. But when we get out of the work environment and when work force never make you see / mingle again, we slowly start realizing that it was just another person who was our colleague over a period of time. At times, it is a depressing feeling. It gets worst when we learn about the good things happening with them from a third person which make you convince your realization of colleague and friend.
I think most of the people of my generation reach a level by the age of say 24 / 25 where they cease to make new friends by heart. Most of them just treat any passer by person as ‘passer-by’ and nothing more. I learned that I am one among the amateur fellow who is yet to learn this art of keeping the old friends and treat passer by as ‘passer-by’.

The time I spend lonely in my rented apartment just adds it to all this crap feeling by making sure that I don’t get anything to engage my mind into. On top of it my so called friend’s advice saying, a marriage is a good solution to so called ‘problems’. I don’t think adding another person to my life will ever solve any problems but it might give me some rest by engaging my mind-time in analyzing and making new problems involving the other person : )
I know the above things doesn’t help me in anyway but some how, I have to agree, just writing this out here makes me feel good. I don’t think It will make any sense to people who might read this!

Bench Time ...Again!

Bench is a very normal terminology in IT industry but for the sake of some non it readers -> Bench means some thing like people put on rest/ hold. I think the terminology came from the players in a team who sit out on bench. If a player gets injured in the match, they will be substituted with folks on bench. So coming back to the topic, I am put on rest! In the industry, the time we spend in bench is a bad thing as it actually reflects badly in the salary perks we are promised to get at the end of each year on salary revision. After seeing the circle through for 4 years, who cares about it!

Bench! I had a totally new, not totally but a rare routine to stick to. For my next client who required an out of the world back ground check before I start working in there location, I had to wait for three weeks. Three weeks, I didn’t had an office to go, so I ended up working from home. Working in the sense checking my office mails from home! Due to the circum-specific scenario, I had no managers to report to. So I ended up spending three weeks of paid vacation at home (In USA). I woke up at morning 10:30 only because of my hunger, slept almost 18 hours one day as my router was not working and my alarm failed to alarm me!

My day went like this for last three weeks irrespective of weekday or weekend.
Wake up at 10:00, have the morning tea left my fellow roomie. Finish reading all online news paper from Kerala kaumudi to New York times. Watch all the Malayalam news channels online available to keep me in synch. Courtesy http://ilikefreetv.com/ Also the movies played in Surya, Asianet plus and Kiran. Once bored with news and movies, get to kitchen try out a new recipe. I ended up making mango-pulishery, Vatthal kuzhambu, Theyal, Pavakka poriyal etc etc which are like the most homely food I could think of other than usual avail and Sāmbhar. As far as the taste is considered, there is no mallu origin in site to taste these and judge them! : ) Once my kitchen experiments subsides with my hunger I will be searching my play list of movies form block buster or Netflex. Thanks to my friends’ special SVG output laptop which will allow me to get the movies to a TV and get the cinema effect all round the clock. By the time I finish my movies, it will time for tennis / cricket / gym / swimming. Next two to three hours is spend in real hard work ending up with a hot shower. Eat out the rest of experiment specimen left from noon and get sleep reading the latest of three books I got hold of. One is ‘Oru deshathinte kada’ by SK Pottakadu which is one of my favorite writers, other is Hitchhiker’s guide and the third is my Certification study guide.

Three weeks with each day scheduled with so many things, I think I am tired now. I have to start looking for some work from my managers. Otherwise I might end up forgetting my office outlook password.

All this is really fun when I think that at the end of the month I will get my full salary for sitting at home : ) But the softy guy in my head is really worried that I spend my three most unproductive weeks of this year. I have to admit one thing. Who cares! :D

American Adventures - II

On my first day in US, just getting ready to office! Just out of bed after a long call with the offshore team, I had a shower. Got a steamy hot shower, fresh and getting into my pants, I heard my room mate’s voice. (He is just 1.5 days old room mate, then!)

Room Mate: Hey R, did you put the shower curtain inside the tub when u took shower?
Me: Which curtain?

I was in a hurry and I did not notice a curtain anywhere.
FYI, in most of the condos and the one - two apartments the IT people usually rent, has a typical American style bathroom. I mean a bath-room with a shower over a bath tub, a ceramic European closet and a half mirror with a wash basin. So as bath is an integral part of any malayali’s routine, bath was more of a shower standing inside the tub. It happened that the curtain was not in place as I was in real hurry. The conversation went on with my room mate like this.

Room Mate (RM): Hey man, come with me.

He gestured me to follow him to the bath room.

RM: Look, this is the curtain. (Pointing the plastic sheet)
Me: Hmmmm Err, sorry man (Embarrassed smile)
RM: You have to keep it like this (Pulling the plastic parting curtain) when you take a shower, ok?
Me: OK man, I will do that.
RM: Also make sure that the lower part of the curtain is kept inside the tub, ok?
Me: ok.
RM: If not, you will make the whole bath room floor wet and there is not outlet also.
Me: Ok, I will take care

I had missed many basic steps to live in US (First day in US)

You have to keep the doors of apartment closed and locked all the time.
If there is knock over the door, look through the peer hole and only if you are sure that you know the person outside will not harm you, then open the door.
911 is a very handy and useful number in case of emergency. Make sure one don’t dial a 911 accidentally as it might trigger the nearest emergency police vehicle.
One cannot make loud noises even inside their own house as the neighbor might call up 911. This can happen even if you are playing your home theatre systems on a loud sound scale.
Avoid being all alone stranded in parking or empty streets. One might become target of mugging.
When encountered with the ‘punks’, avoid looking at them as they might pick a fight with you.
Express your ‘thanks’ even the event is a very small gesture or help. Here they use the phrase ‘I appreciate it!’
If uncertain about anything, please don’t assume, ASK them again. J
Any buffet in US, if you are going for a second serving, leave you first plates and go for the second set of plates and spoons. Here they don’t entertain use of same plates on a second serve.
TIP at least 10% of bill amount, if happy with their help; increase it to 15 or 20%. This includes Cab fares, waiters and room helpers.
Any lift, elevator, make sure ladies get in first and allow them get out first. The gathering really expects this much!
Vegetarian means a lot of Cabbage and tomato over your hamr and if one needs veggie food, tell them NO MEAT, NO CHICKEN, NO HAM, NO BEEF, NO EGG! Consider yourself really lucky if you get anything with these constraints in US
Last but the best; NEVER expect any of these from any of the Desi crowd out here towards us. Desi – desi, no one cares. If you are in a desi food market, don’t even dream about any part of courtesy. They just simply don’t care!

Sleep ...time ..tic tic tic

I heard the soft buzz sound from my client laptop. It pulled me out of sleep. My eyes reluctantly open and started looking for my mobile. Yes, found it, at the other end of my bed. Still with half opened eyes, managed to look at the time, it is 5:15 in the morning. The thought crossed to sleep again but the other part of me who is still worried about the presentation coming up ….finally the other part won.

Open the lap top, entered my password, loading and loading.
My eyes again felt like closing ….i felt the warmth of my pillion on my cheeks, yes I am back on lying posture, a faint smile on my face … and the better half is winning now ….

Again the same buzz sound from Lap top, this time, and the worst half took over. A stream of thoughts came in, yes my boss has sent some review comments and I did not respond, he is asking where am I in the second mail …all these thoughts fled in a matter of no time into my head …..

I checked my laptop, it has loaded, I can see my desktop wall paper with my half opened eye, checked my outlook, yes there are two mails. Oh my god, those where mails from my HR which I usually delete without reading. This time it is all about a half marathon coming up. Who is going to run? The software half was getting beaten up the human half in my head. I got my cheek close to the pillion. No, the warmth is gone from the pillion, I searched with my cheeks on the pillow if any portion has a little warm …I found a small area, tried to get my cheek there, position for next 30 minutes sleep.

The gush of checking mails had dried up my sleep, now it will take at least 5 minutes to get back to where I left over the sleep. Suddenly I heard my mobile alarm again, man hadn’t I set 6:00 or it was 5:30. I just kept my head at 5:30 only. I checked my alarm, it was 6:00. Oh my god, my morning sleep is spoiled. Again I hit the snooze button, thought for a moment with closed eyes, balancing my upper body on one hand over the pillow. My stomach is growling and I felt hungry also. The softy guy came on mind again

Look if u don’t get up now, you will not have time to pack ur lunch, that means going out to street and eating all alone. Also chasing the bus in the morning with an empty stomach! Do you really want to sleep back ? Think again!

Where did this guy (Worst part, softy part) appear all the time when I am quiet happy being lazy, I mean the softy guy in the head, which always think ahead and reason my actions now? I took my mobile, cancelled the snooze, sat up, prayed (Not usual but today yes I did pray)
‘God help me sleep better tomorrow’ went to kitchen looking for the tea maker.

I think anyone who is staying alone might have gone through the same set of things but in different aspects …. Morning sleep! an irreplaceably addictive habit. The sweetness of this sleep increases in case of Mondays and sweetens most when you have an early morning meeting with client!