SKYWALKS

What I notice these days during my Mumbai visit is SKYWALKS near every railway station. Once upon a time it was flyover era and now its sky walking. Really a very good initiative by MMRDA for pedestrians to get out of the crowded railway stations to the nearby locations.
As an IT folk, when I look at the sky walk I wonder what if tomorrow they have to extend the sky walk to next level. Have the civil engineers designed the sky walks with future enhancements in mind???
I hope so.... But these skywalks are making life simpler and walking better..... :)

Random Thought:
Beware, The slogan WALK-N-TALK is risky while walking and crossing roads. But its pretty much safe while sky walking. Happy SKY walking.

MYSTERIOUS CALL

7:29am - My eyes open just to see there is 1 min for the alarm to ring...I must appreciate the biological clock which is set by GOD... So unconscious deep in sleep you still manage to get up on ur own... Now what??? My daily routine of snoozing the alarm for next 10mins starts.... It happens till 7.50am, when suddenly i realise that i have to get up else we both(me n Mandy) gonna get late for office.Today, I was quite confident that i had a sound sleep of 8 hrs and don't require to snooze the alarm.... My other hanset is switched off most of the times. Today i started the cell and god knows when the shutters got closed again.... Suddenly 5 mins later I got a miss call from an unknown no. I got up and wondered who called up this early.... I realized that I had not snoozed the alarm.... Agar ye miss call na aaya hota toh definitely I wud have got late to office.... Who had called??? Unknown No. No second call....Was it The Almighty himself..... feels like GOD had saved me from missing the first pick to office...
I think such small and many other things make you believe that HE is always there to take care of you.

CHANGE PLEASE!!

There is a beggar who sits in the lane i take daily mornings.... Not always but at times I happen to give him alms, which is not more than 2rs.While travelling in mumbai trains I had a habit of giving money to every next beggar coming into the train thinking 1 CCD trip costs me mininum 100Rs, which can be a drop in the bucket of atleast 50 beggars. But my generosity was replaced with the movie "Traffic signal" which talks about Beggar's rackets...... How they are made forcefully handicapped for begging? The movie takes ur heart away.... But I wonder, should I be giving alms to these beggars as eventually it will be filling someone else pocket and they are already employed in there BEGGAR's ASSOCIATION. What makes more sense over here is to give them some eatables which will definitely satisty their tummy and not someone else.

(Herein, I would like to appreciate the creative ad's which made me give chocolates to poor kidz.... Cadbury ad, Is diwali aap kisse khush karenge?)

Getting back to the beggar I was talking about, Today I saw a lower middle class guy coming towards the beggar... He had looks like the typical mistry who must be coming to your place for some carpentry work. He removed a 10Rupee note from his pocket..... We were zapped and glad at the same time, Me and the beggar. I felt very shameful. The so-called money minting ITian giving 1-2 Rs and this BIG hearted worker giving 10Rs.

It just took a minute for my guilt to last.... What a scene it was, The bending of the worker and the beggar's raising hand...Taking the 10Rupee note and picking back 9Rs. change....

Shayad Change is so much in need that we dont mind taking it from anyone..... The utmost advantage of "change nahi hai" is taken by Pune-auto wallas.... Whatever reading the meter shows 23-24, they will end up asking for 25 or even if they says 23 they will say change nahi hai.... :) So people who are money-minded, sorry who value money should keep the change ready.

AUNTY mat kaho na........

Trying to make a comeback..... Hope u r wid me..... :)
I used to like this Dye ad alot since childhood... Wondering all the time whether my dad looks younger than Mom or vice -versa.... :)
The other day, i was in the balcony drying clothes and heard kids calling for some aunty.....The calls went for long. I wondered who is the stupid aunty not responding for so long. I felt like seeing the poor kids who were screaming at the top of their voices for the aunty, and what do i see........ THEY WERE CALLING ME!!! SPARE me the HORROR.....I feel like using this phrase frequently des days. Oftenly used by BIG BOSS family, no need to mention that I am follower of all BIG BOSS season's.

There is a gulmohor tree who's branch comes into my balcony.... They wanted flower's... Normally I dont like to pluck flowers as I feel they last long and look beautiful on trees.
But couldn't say NO to those kids.... Unwillingly I plucked those flowers and gave it to them.... The happiness on their faces was PRICELESS.
I blushing said "U can call me didi......." Pata nahi aur kis kissko ye batana padega...... Realised how much painful It wud have been to all those Didi's whom I used to call AUNTY.

Over the weekend, again I heard the kids screaming for the AUNTY.... Very sure this time that they must not be calling me as I have very sweetly told them to call me Didi.... I didn’t pay heed and continued watching TV.... the calls continued.... Dil pe paather rakh ke I went to the balcony, just to notice that those calls were for me.....
I felt like I shouldnt be giving them any flowers till they call me DIDI..... Par bachche mann ke sachche soch ke maine phool de diye.....

With the ThankU aunty ..... I had some surprise this time... they said Whats ur name aunty so that we can call you by your name next time???
Nahiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii................... I dint had the guts to hear GARGI AUNTY...................... Apna naam batake, tuta hua dil leke I returned back.
I was like the TOM (from TOM and Jerry) jiski gardaan plan flop hone pe jhuk jaati hai..... :(

The point here is not that my hair have started showing signs of aging but still Kidz have started calling me AUNTY..... :(
I think I shud go for OLAY.... Would like to ask the Aunties, does it work?????

NOTE: I seriously find this generation kids smarter than me as a child..... One more random incident happened in AC coach of Intercity.
The coach has door which closes on its own but u need to give a slight push... I found all adults and so called responsible and matured guys, passing the door without taking the effort to close it back. Every next child who passed the door, made it sure that the door wasn’t left open.... I found it strange but are we so much pre-occupied with other things that we are no more alert or have we become so much irresponsible that we don’t care if the door is left open.

This one is for YOU--------------->>2008.................

My AIM is to post atleast one blog per month... Its high time for me to write one for Dec08 and the last one for the year...Just feel like putting down the various emotions and activities of 2008.....
Let me start with activities first:
>> SWIMMING.... Tried learning it.... But i gave up very early, within a month(can you believe)..... :(
>> BADMINTON... Playing baddy after ages, that too badminton tournament... It was real FUN... More satisfaction was that I burned few calories... :)
>> RAIRESHWAR trek..... Wins the BEST EVENT of the YEAR08 award.....An experience to treasure...So close to nature enjoying the rains and the 'VAADIYAAN'... I felt like the KING of the WORLD.
>> RATNAGIRI.... A COOL ONE....
>> GYMING...although its not even a month that i have started GYMING...Its very relaxing and you enjoy it more if you have company. Plus you get to see some dudes and babes..."Dudes" to "tapofy" and "Babes" to inspire you to get in "SHAPE"..... :)
Now its emotion TIME....
>> Escapism..... My all time solution to problems... But mind you, doesn't work..... You can run from everything and everyone in life but where will you run from yourself....Thats what I tried doing the entire year.... Just to realise that I am still standing there from where i started running.
>> Self destruction.....I think i have developed a tendency of hurting myself..... I tend to buy things which I cant afford emotionally..What a hi-fi dialogue it is....
>> Control.... I just appreciate the self control few people have... NO means NO.... and here I am, my NO always gets converted to HO... :-/What should i blame.... lack of self control or i don't stand by my words.... :(
On the emotional front, I just feel like a loser at the end of 08. In short,I have lot of emotional resolutions to make for 09....Even if I forget, this blog will remind me the KEY improvements areas I need to work on in 09.... :)
So people wish me luck so that I stick to my resolutions and fulfill them.... Wishing you and your near and dear ones a very happy and properous 2009.... Enjoyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RATNAGIRI... Ready Steady Go.......

Travelling over night is not a big deal.... as we can just keep on sleeping the whole journey.. But this was a day time travel, my first COMPANY offsite and my first day time travel.Reluctant over the travel hours I still decided to go for the offsite. The bus journey to the destination was simply great. I dint expect it to be so much fun as I was in a different bus than my department people... Played the all time favourite games like Antakshari, Dumb charades, etc... Learnt new game called Coffee-Potting....(A brief overview of the same - all the participants except one will decide upon a action(verb) like - dancing, sleeping, scratching, laughing,etc. The person with DAN has to find out what verb have they decided upon by asking series of questions to the participants. Eg. Suppose the word is Sleeping.... the person will ask..Do u coffee-pot? 1Participant - yes... How often you coffee-pot? 2participant -daily....when did u last coffee-pot? 3participant- yesterday night...So on and so forth....So relating the questions and there corresponding answers, the person should guess the action). The game was real fun....Suddenly our bus halted..... does any journey go without hindrances? But as long as its not the last obstacle in life I am fine with it.... Our bus had broken done.....All we had to do is call back the other bus which had gone 12 kms ahead....Packed like a local train in Mumbai(but mind u....an AC local... ;)) we completed the rest of our journey...... 3 seaters and standing people....
The pain over this was some URDU shayari which was more of bouncer......And people singing ghaati rickshaw wala songs by banging the bottles for background sound..... Finally we reached the destination, THE KOHINOOR SAMUDRA resort.... Place worth the journey.... We actually dint realise that we spend a whole day in bus...Rooms were pre-allocated... Luckily I was in one room with my friend while the rest of the crowd was paired more or less randomly... Got fresh and then ran to the dining hall with high expectations about the food as we were in KONKAN.... :) But the dinner dint turn out to be good..... :( After the meal, gurls deciding about the next day early morning plans of going on beach.....I was damn sleepy...just wanted to get into my bed..Slept peacefully.... Next day morning we went to the beach....I dint wish to get wet...Plus lot of crabs over the shore.....We hardly spend some 30mins over then beach as people were in hurry to go to Ganapatipule.... I dint wish to travel again ....So thought of staying back at the resort itself..Now whats next.... Sitting near the pool and applying sunscreen lotion without costumes.... We werent aware that costume is must to get into the pool....After doing lot of thinking and manipulation( hindi mein we call it "jugad....") we were in the pool.... :) Enjoyed playing water polo with guys.... It was real fun until I was injured and had to take early retirement... :) Dint know much of swimming but my friend helped me my way through in the pool... Thanks to her without whom I couldnt even float... :( Now It was time to come out of the pool...we needed towels... and here was this guy who helped us wid it... And we were like fultoo fida..... Our friends on the pool dint realise that the gals need a towel.... But that gentlemen did!!
Back to the room and suddenly my friend calls from the bath "Can you hear songs in the bathroom?" and I say "No". Next me in bath and I got the point were we can actually increase the volume of songs... dint knew till then that there was in-built(typical IT word) music systems in room.... We were damn impressed..... After bath it was chat time.... As always we again got late for the lunch and the Ganapatipule people were also back by then....
Evening was again adventurous... We thought of going to the beach to get the sunset view....Mind you not walking but we thought of grabbing some means of transport... Since no transport available we had to take some steep short cut.... and then we were at the beach.... Was quite sure that while returning from the beach it would be quite dark to take the short cut and we will be going by road.... But that wasnt the case....It was time to return and boys suggested taking the short cut... It wasnt a great suggestion according to me as it was getting darker and darker..... But still Bhagwaan ka naam leke we started on our way thru the short cut.... Coming down was no pain compared to climbling the way..... what a pain.... Plus me and my friend had carried our cells, volets, towels...bla bla bla which was adding to my weight.... :( Finally we were back and then it turned complete dark.... God saved the sunlight for us to climb up..... :)
Now it was the long awaited DJ night..... Me and my friend as throughout the offsite were the last one's to be at the DJ hall.... But the first one's to take the dance floor.... Once I was on the dance floor...There was no looking back....Dancing my all time passion..... Completely aloof of who's watching and who's not I enjoyed the floor to the fullest... Though the DJ was pathetic we still managed to catch the beats..... 3 hours on the dance floor and I was totally drained out.... But in the end, I simply enjoyed dancing...Totally exhausted I was back to the room at midnite....Wished to extend my stay at Ratnagiri but had to pack the bags... :( Check out time was 8am in the morning....
It was time to return..... Leave the place and carry with us the sweet memories of a wonderful offsite.......Thank to GOD for a safe journey and my company for such a lovely offsite.... :)

Eye Opener Weekend...

I was quite depressed with few things happening to me... Couldn't understand what was wrong with me.....I had promised my friend that I will be meeting him this weekend... Since I am away from home, there is lot of demand for me over the weekends..... Weekends make me feel like a STAR.... :)......Family and friends everyone wanting part of you.... But despite of everyone liking and wanting me so much, why was i feeling so depressed and low... :(

Sis dear had plans for dinner and I also had to meet Mr. Ajo... So we finally decided that we three will go for dinner together....I was physically present with them but mentally not..... I was wandering somewhere else.... I was questioning myself where am I if not here.....I knew the answer...I was missing someone.... :(....I was missing out on the conservation and discussions which were going on the dinning table.... My friend and Sis were getting wild....

Mr. Ajo, my godfather,my mentor and a wonderful friend.... He is always besides me in all the seasons of my life.... Knows what makes me low, what brings smile on my face and what all blunders I do.... :)

Looking at me he understood that I was depressed about something.... Without me having defined my problem, he had given me solution.....Gargi, just stay in the present, learn from your mistakes.... I always live in past or future... :( Not making my present happy...

After the dinner I was feeling so good, revived!!The food then tasted awesome... Being a foodie, I love to hog.... And I just long and love to share these hogging moments wid Sis, Mr. Ajo and the person I miss.... :) Love you all... Thanks for always being there.....