How work, induced stress!

 There are so many thoughts on past office(s) which I have on my mind, which I am yet to write. Apart from the stress of workplace, ongoing and return traffic there was a peculiar thing which comes to my mind, which made me sick or stressed or both, not really sure. 

It took a huge effort to figure out what it was and in reality it turns out, it is a bit more serious and I should not chance upon such stunts in the very near future.

 I started to work at 7 am in the morning and then started for home by 4PM. It took me around two hours to reach home or may be more many times and sometimes less may be by 20 mins. Then I used to go to gym for exercise and come back home by 9 15PM odd. 

Then food and sleep. Somewhere amidst this daily schedule, I forgot to drink sufficient water. I did need more water due to the exercise but I completely ignored the water need in the end falling sick, getting stressed, feeling stiff, cramped most of the times. 

I can feel the effect of having less water in your body, the feeling of being dehydrated. There were few reasons which I feel were the driving force behind me drinking less water.

1. Sitting in an air conditioned environment I was always conscious about how many times I go to pee. I felt rather uncomfortable or embarrassed at the thought of peeing three times between 8am - 12 noon. The reason was simple, the air conditioner was simply malfunctioning, temperature fluctuated between 21 degrees to 22 degrees centigrade.  
2. I drank tea or milk during the morning schedule of my office which made me drink lesser water, the fear of visits to loo to pee looming more.
3. Shuttle commute from work took two hours and there was no stop over to pee, or rather it was embarrassing to stop to pee.
4. Post dinner. - Post dinner once again, I was in a hurry to sleep reason being I had to wake up at 5 am, for next day's work. 

There was a time frame from the time I came back from office to the time I went to gym, I could have drunk water, but nope, I drank tea, a little water and rested. Also too much water would lead to bloating restricting me from running on treadmill.

All the while I have only exercises. The last 3-5 months have led to severe degradation of my lifestyle, induced loads of stress. Not drinking much water was just one dimension. On the work front I still have loads of cribbing which I plan to undo, piece by piece, studying in detail every aspect of my own self, thus in the process, which I sincerely hope, unloading years and years of accumulated stress, anger and guilt.

Cheers,

PS - I have to read and re-read my own writing to ensure edits which are necessary, which currently I do not have time to. My laptop is slow plus, I get distracted quite a bit.

Teaching old dog new tricks - Muse 1

 Back in 2020 it all started. During the lockdown, there was Mahabharata which was telecasted on television everyday. It did keep lots of spirits high amidst all the gloom. It also gave me a thought process. To read BhagavadGita and to purchase a particular version, a hard copy comprising of three volumes written by Swami Ranganathananda.

I did purchase it and started reading it alas, I just moved to a different book altogether rendering my reading incomplete, much to my own guilt and shame.

I till date have not completed reading even a single 'Adhyaya'. But I will definitely. 

Around that time, I got a bit more active on instagram and came to know about the book 'Remnants of Separation' and was very curious about it. It was about the partition and I thought, why not just read it as I found it very interesting. I was about to purchase it for the kindle, but then, something struck my mind.

My kindle reading pursuits have been very unfruitful, buying and leaving books unread and then ditching the reading process altogether. I needed a more stricter regime, plus, alongside I thought, a book like 'Remnants' could never be done justice via an online copy or via kindle. It had to be read in a physical form, let alone be read, I saw it more as a jewel in a bookshelf. This turned my attention to buying books.

I knew books are expensive when brought new, but then, with-holding myself all these years, I turned to buying used books. I realized Blossoms in Bangalore sells new as well as pre-loved ones'. That got me into buying books. Something which started as a hesitant hobby and now just took off beyond my own imagination.

Hesitant hobby because, buying books for me happens to be an activity very close to my heart, just like buying stationery. I simply cannot stop it once I start it. I feel I do have a life long obsession towards having books having a book shelf, much to my own embarrassment of claiming, not having read many of the owned ones.

All these years, I kept accumulating books on kindle. But never read with much force so as to complete more than 10 books a year. Now, since my buying increased I had to up the tempo on reading too. 

I realized if I could post a review on instagram and track status on goodreads, I could keep myself more disciplined on track to complete more books. And yes, it has worked out well, I do read more these days. I buy more than I can read, but then, do I have any complaints? None as such.

In the middle there was one phase where I just became greedy for free books, yes, free books. Books which are new are given away to instagram influencers in return for an honest review. And honest review doesn't necessarily translate to negative review. No publisher wants a negative review. 

But the catch was, you got to have more followers. My followers on instagram are and were less than 70, so my chance of winning free books went in smoke pretty quickly. The bubble of my greediness burst when an author declined to give me any books in giveaway. It took me multiple attempts to come out of the hangover of free books.

Until one day a kind man on instagram who identifies as God Father of books, introduced me to the noble book sellers of Bombay and Delhi and a special group for buying/selling books. What kicked off a frenzy buying hasn't stopped till date and I am overly indebted to him for the endless supplies of affordable books.

I have since known many sellers from Bombay namely Dhirajji, Pandeyji, Afzalji, Navinji and many more. Daryaganj, Mahila ki Haat and College Street have become easily accessbile and buying books has never been that affordable. I am no longer a regular at Blossoms but someday, I will be back at Blossoms.

Until then,

Cheers,

Teaching old dog new tricks - Muse 0

 Post 2020, I tried teaching myself new tricks. Well calling it tricks would be an overstatement. I would prefer to call it 'muse'. I owe my day to this muse, which helped me think about many a things apart from work.

There was a time when I was so so interested in work, software, good design, code, etc etc. But over the years having realized many a software does get scrapped with less usage plus, not every beautifully designed and written piece of code goes to production and not every production code is beautiful, I shifted interests in doing many a things, than just writing software.

 There shall be few posts where in I just write about my new muses'.

Cheers. 

Back from hiatus...2

I chose not to write - apart from the reasons mentioned in the previous posts, lacking motivation, outside happenings etc, there was another consistent companion which was accompanying me for the past  5years may be.

How much ever I give credit to it, for sustaining my day to day expenses, via an amount added at the end of each month to my bank account aka salary, in exchange for a statement of work which was assigned to me, I have to admit, the last 5 years have taken quite a toll on me.

I have been through three organizations and all these three have been like three dimensions, each one WORST in its own way. I generally preferred not to write so scathingly about my workplaces - owing to it - sustaining me, nurturing me, training me and helping me grow, but overtime my threshold barrier just got broken.

I am such a precarious position where, in hiding what I went through just quadruples my nightmares even more than reducing it as time passes. 

I do have lost touch with many a people, a couple who seem to be lost themselves and do not reply to my emails, I have changed my blog URL, I have been scammed of Rs 30k by a so called carpenter leaving me with nothing but a bucket loads of abuses and abusive messages towards him.

A person who's blog I read has published a book (which is good news, cheers to you if you are reading this post. ).  

Kannada translation - ನಾನು ಓದುತ್ತಿರುವ ಬ್ಲಾಗ್‌ನ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿಯೊಬ್ಬರು ಪುಸ್ತಕವನ್ನು ಪ್ರಕಟಿಸಿದ್ದಾರೆ (ಇದು ಒಳ್ಳೆಯ ಸುದ್ದಿ, ನೀವು ಈ ಪೋಸ್ಟ್ ಅನ್ನು ಓದುತ್ತಿದ್ದರೆ ನಿಮಗೆ ಚೀರ್ಸ್. ).

So I chose to write owing to lessen my mental burdens thanks to myriad of moronic characters and experiences I had to undergo or bear in the last 5 years, each one being equally detrimental to my mental and physical health.

More such posts shall follow.

Cheers,

Back from hiatus...

 As I look back, I see only two posts in the year 2022, back in the month of October. There was a time when I was writing like crazy, rambling, ranting and what not. I wrote whatever came to my mind.

But since 2020, it took a different turn altogether. Plus in 2021, I decided not to write, owing to the sensitivity of the 'then' current outside situation. 

I basically could not overlook or hide the gloominess within myself and probably the world and instead portray sunshine,

On the other side, I still have not come to terms with what just went by in the last two years or may be three to be soon. The irreversible after effects hit me each time, I meet people who tell me how they just went through a phase which nobody could even dream of. 

May God give strength to all.  

No sooner I recollect the days gone by, I feel, I should have written more and kept it in draft and not published. It would have been helpful. 

I get back now, trying to remember what all happened and then try to post it. Let me see, how much I succeed. Most of the things are in my mind. Its just that I have to put pen to paper, rather fingers to keyboard. 

Since I wrote less, I got sufficient time to do other things, and, along the way, I have picked up multiple things which keep me engaged on a bigger chunk. I shall post about them too. 

By the way, if I can remember correctly, I chose not to write, because I felt, the outside situation was very grim and sadness prevailed everywhere, and I thought, I might not protrude anything insensitive into the public domain via my writing, howmuchever immature they are.

But now, I am left with less option than not to write I shall explain in another post. But until then,

Cheers,

An ode to my place of worship - 2

 The year 2022 has been good by God's grace. The situation last year had made my stop writing. I had turned so much negative that writing ceased big time. 

I was unhappy with my job profile, which currently still holds. I was very much disliked what I did on a day to day basis. More on that I can write later.

But in the month of February, I realized, I was missing my exercise. The whole pandemic scenario had cast a break in my workout routine. I had put on weight, I had my own frustrations and I was clueless. Few days I did have a jogging routine every morning. 

But then, my office opened and it broke off. So in the month of February, my running routine too went off track. 

With not much option left, I had to get back to what I loved to do the most, that is go to the gym. 

And as I write this its been over 5 months I suppose, I have been regular, its been fun, I am seeing results too. 

Monday and Tuesday I go to office, which leaves me with 5 days to exercise, but I make most of it. 

I suppose most answers to life lies, either in the mountains or in the gym.

More on my habits during pandemic in the following posts!

Cheers,  

An ode to my place of worship - 1

 It is exactly a year since I last posted, too many events have happened over the last one year. I can write them in the coming days.

But to begin, or to say, to come out of retirement, what better way than to post few pics of my place of worship. With situation getting better outside and situation getting tenser inside, I was left with no option to go back to the place which never disappoints me, the place which always welcomes me with open arms, no matter what my disappointment be. 

Today there was pooja at that very place and what better way to re-start kind of blogging than posting pictures from over there.

Blogging retirement

 I haven't been posting much on my blog due to various reasons. I have written time and again about various reasons but then when I think about it, I feel, let me write it  again.

1. I have been writing more on paper and fountain pen. I can write anything I want without the worry of it being public. But over here, whatever I write might end up being visible to someone.

2. Current situation of being at home and working has made me write less, owing to outside world, I feel its better to procrastinate right now and wait than to write stuffs on the blog which might feel a bit uneasy for me.

3. I have been reading stuffs. There are books which I am reading owing to which I do not feel like writing.

4. Watching PC/monitor. I use monitor / PC during work and blogging again needs me to see towards computer which I find a bit boring, so have not written much.

5. Some other day!

6. There is not much fun these days in writing stuffs public. The outside world makes me feel glum the pain the suffering, it all makes me think not just twice but a 100 times before I write something here.

Hope people get all the necessary strength and help to survive the current sitation.

Cheers, until next time!

Air India goes to Tata Sons and I am super happy!

 Today is one such day, I decided to come out of my mini blogging retirement in order to post something.

I shall write about the reasons of my semi blogging retirement in the following post, but, let me quickly tell you why I chose to write today.

Air India shall finally go back to its founder owner! Yes, Yes Yes,

As someone who respects TATA Sons very much, I was upset the day I got to know Air India was initially Tata Flying company and it was made public by Panditji.

Finally today the privatization of Air India decision has been finalized and its none other than Tata Sons who get the ownership of the Maharaja.

I feel good, I really feel good! Saw Ratan Tata on the news channel walking slowly on the diaz. I can understand the feelings and emotions what he must be going through!

Ahh, very much indebted to Tata's. Congratulations to them on getting back their own Kohinoor!

Cheers,

Goodreads - reading challenge

 Since the last few years, I have not been able to complete writing 100 posts a year. I have no regrets, I do have the content somewhere in my mind, which I can catch into at some later point.

There is one more challenge which I had taken on good reads, it was to complete a certain number of books a year.

I have been taking good reads challenge every year for the last 4-5 years and I average about 8 books a year for the last 2 years which is rather ridiculous (owing to kindle and few other stuffs).

This year too, I set 5 books and I am proud as of today mid year its been 7 books. My highest has been 20 I suppose all on kindle. Now that I plan to go to physical copy of books, I wish I can up the number.

Cheers,

Ordering books

 After many years on Kindle, I thought of going back to buying books and reading printed books. Without much of a fuss, I made a list of books which I wanted to buy and then placed the order.

I got few of them used ones and I plan to few new ones. I realized, if I get used copy of the books, it amounts to the same as kindle books. In return, I get to hold physical copy of books.

Real reason of going back to buying physical books over kindle are as below.

1. Reading kindle feels slower - too many taps and touches later, I would not have completed even 10% of a book. Classics with 600+ pages end up taking too much time and if its not an interesting read, its even more slower.

2. Reading on a kindle after hours in front of a monitor feels a bit irritating. Though not completely, its the mindset which makes me think that I am staring at kindle which is another monitor.

3. Lack of inspiration - Though I have plenty of books on kindle, not seeing them on shelf causes me to abandon the reading pleasure. This results in lesser books read.

4. Home library - I always have and had a dream of a having a huge shelf dedicated to books comprising of multiple authors. So a step closer to that would be to start buying.

5. Business to local vendors - During lock-down many local book sellers might be having lots of stocks and offering discounts. Instead of buying online versions from bigger players it would be worthwhile buying from smaller sellers, doing my tiniest bit. (also I get to choose from used books versus new books). 

6. Holding books, the various designer covers, the thought of classics being placed around the shelf with or without it being read is a pleasure. Waking up to them is nothing next to pure bliss.

7. Reading with marking - I always thought books to be kept clean as possible, but not anymore. Now I am even thinking of using markers wherever needed just for my pleasure. I know it might destroy the aesthetics of the reading experience, but then my reading joy and pleasure comes first.

8. Boasting about the books owned - ahhh - a childhood joy missed out, owing to playing in mud. Never mind, happy to be alive time to catch up.

Cheers,

PS - Downside is my parents are aware of my buying habit and not reading them. They also know that I find less time to read - so its easy to gauge how much I can read and how much I cannot.

Drinking English tea, - The Edd China way

 I am very much influenced by few people from Television shows - One of them happens to be Edd China. I have been watching Edd from quite a few years may be 2013 - 2017 post which I stopped watching television. 

It happens Edd was a part of very famous show Wheeler Dealers which I used to watch. Post that show, I did not know what happened to the show nor what happened to Edd.

Now Edd's back on youtube with a new series of videos under the title Workshop Diaries - which I follow very ardently. The show is all about fixing cars, which Edd does best.

Though owning a workshop, workbench, professional tools, working on cars is a dream of mine, which I am not sure if I can ever fulfill, because of the investment and time required. 

One thing which I caught on from the show if not about mechanics - its about Edd China's way of drinking tea. 

I am used to drinking tea the Indian way - where we boil water and milk and tea leaves in a kettle for about 15 mins and then drink the same. 

But now I am trying to change and trying to incorporate the way Edd China drinks tea - its by boiling water in a kettle adding the boiling hot water to a mug having tea bag and then adding 2 spoons of milk!

Watch the show, I promise you will enjoy their tea break as much as the show!

I waited for two weeks before I got my pack of tea bags owing to lockdown, but boy o boy am I enjoying the new way of drinking tea? Yes I am.

Cheers!

PS - hope someday I get to work in a workshop with some tools too, fiddling with stuffs rather than just computer software!

Book by Dale Carnegie - How to win friends and influence people

I was reading this famous book by Dale written many moons ago. It was my second take at this particular book. First time, I was pretty much a beginner or you can call me an immature. But now after so many years in corporate, I felt, I am pretty much an experienced campaigner to take on this book.

I started and completed the book in 3 days, not boasting about my achievement. But the situation I encounter in corporate has no answers for, in this particular book.

The book says - with sympathy, appreciation people work better. Listening to people's stories or problems will make them feel important and they will oblige. Writing clearly letters or any documentation shall always be appreciated. 

But on a day to day basis, I hate to admit these are the things which I do not find places to apply. 

If a person is least interested in reading emails, how much ever I write clearly, he fails to read. If a person is not interested in working, how shall me listening to his problem make him perform better. What can I do if a person is always telling lies, making excuses and double talking. Well I really cannot do but just to feel bad for the investor who funds the corporate projects and quacks who handle projects.

Clearly, the book written by Dale has aged. People have found new ways to trick their bosses, colleagues solution to which has to come from people's inner conscience. Clearly role of teachers, parents, genes, environment, plays a crucial role. 

Back to back reading....

 One thing I missed during my childhood was reading all of Agatha Christie books, I hardly read 4-5 of them. I was hoping a day would come and I could get hang of many of Agatha Christie books and read them and over come my childhood guilt.

Last 2.5 weeks have been lucky for me, I gotta read 4 books in total and 3 of which are Agatha Christie.
I finished my goodreads reading challenge for the year which was 5 books in 2021, I now surpassed it with count being 6.

Out of the 6 books I have read, 3 happen to be Agatha Christie.

1. Mysterious affairs at styles.

2. Murder on the links.

3. Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

I shall be reading few more, especially the ones which have good rating on good reads.

But reading Christie has been pure fun and reliving childhood memories is just priceless. 

Cheers to Christie and simple life!

And now after back to back Christie, I switched over to short stories. After Tagore's short stories, I was looking for a good follow up one. But many of the time, I was left disappointed. I tried to read Shashi Deshpande, could not connect, I read Ruskin Bond, and it got over too soon. 

And then I now got Short stories by Satyajit Ray, translated by Gopa Majumdar. 

I felt what better way to celebrate centenary birth year of the legend Ray than reading some of his short stories. its a mammoth 500 pager waiting to be read by me.. 

One thing I lost by this back to back reading is not being able to play on my play station :(

Cleaning the Auri Katarina way

 Well, instagram has taught me quite a few tricks during the lockdown phase. The very recent thing which I gotta learn was from Auri Katarina and it is all about cleaning.

If you do not know who the Queen of cleaning is - you gotta check these videos and the immaculate cleaning techniques many of which I have applied, on oven, kitchen and couple of other places.

Cheers and loads of thanks going out to the queen of cleaning!.

Meanwhile - I recently had a discussion on how staying away from few sites/apps can save you lots of time. Well, yeah (I do agree). 

PS - Since TikTok is banned in India, I gotta use instagram to follow Auri.

David Gray and his music - Part 1

 I have been listening to David Gray since my teenage years, I am sad to say, I have been discovering or understanding his music even better only now.

I chanced upon few very nice songs in the last few days, I so much fell in love with the music  instrument play that I had to bring this blog public from hiatus, just to share those few songs which I adore.

Here it goes.

The song is Lately. Both the version are from Live Stage concerts. The Nurburgring one starts from 14:35.

I will write about how I fell in love with David Gray during the year 2002-2003, in my coming posts.

Cheers,

Of hidden interests

 I must confess, I do have a hidden interest, waiting to be pursued. Its about reading. I wish to take a particular author and read all of his writings/literature/ contribution.

I did this with Ruskin Bond, I have read so much of Ruskin Bond books and many of the stories multiple times, that I feel quite pleased with myself. This came from my love for Uttarakhand - home of Mr Bond.

Post this, I have never been able to circle around a particular author and read all of his/her works in succession. 

Few of the authors whom I have in me mind are Kipling, Nietsche, Jim Corbett, Agatha Christie, Virginia Woolf (felt too hard), Mark Twain, RK Narayan, Tagore, Bertrand Russel - couldn't handle philosophy.

I also have a dream to have a library at home. Going by the price of wood, per square feet, I am pretty sure, it ain't gonna happen soon. Also, books are quite costly.

But how cool it is, to have all of Gurudev, Ruskin Bond, Satyajit Ray, RK Narayan, Kipling, Mark Twain, alongside, Tintin, Agatha, the printed one's stacked up and you wake up to them, having a book nook. 

Reminds me of good old days, when life was simpler and the air was purer, grass was greener, and of course traffic was lesser and environment was cleaner and we had a library (membership) of course, where we could smell books, and a bakery next to it, where we could get something to eat too :) Simple joys of life.

Someday!

Cheers, 

Kishor Kumar

 I am very much a fan of Kishor Kumar, I love his singing, but more than that, I love his eccentricity. He was one in a century kind of person. I always thought about writing on songs and my favorite singers. Someday I will. But for today, I shall want to add a link to the interview of Kishor Kumar, most likely the year was 1985? Well, not too sure. 

I am very much in awe with whatever his thought process was. 

https://theprint.in/features/when-kishore-kumar-spoke-to-pritish-nandy-about-bombay-hitchcock-and-his-many-wives/93307/

Cheers,

Toto - Rosanna - Rosanna Shuffle or Porcaro Shuffle

It was during my teenage years I came to know about TOTO. The song which I liked of TOTO back then was a cover of the song written by The Beatles Legend - Sir George Harrison, called While my guitar gently weeps. 

I so much liked the song, back then I had never heard of the song by The Beatles or Sir George. The year being 2002/2003, I did not have much info back then on ToTo or youtube or Wikipedia or online music.

Somehow I realized Toto had couple of other hits - Rosanna and Africa - which I genuinely liked. Now with so much of online info available, I realized they have a lot of hits to their name.

But what impresses me the most was not the only the song Rosanna but Porcaro Shuffle.

- Imagine, you write, play and record a song and you end up creating a legendary drum shuffle which is so hard that even after 30 years of the drummer legend Jeff Porcaro passing away people to this day still struggle to play it neatly without mistakes. That is TOTO

- Imagine you are a bunch of guys, who are the first to be called for any artist as session musician, that is TOTO.

- Imagine you end up raking 12 Grammy awards over 2 albums, that is TOTO - TOTO IV  won 5 and these guys worked with Micheal Jackson as session musicians, and that album won 7. I may have figures wrong, but the thought of having that kind of achievement itself is remarkable, back when you had legends contending for Grammy's.

- Imagine, Porcaro Brothers (Jeff, Mike, Steve), Page, Hungate, Kimball, Lukather all together in one line up, the amount of creative juices flowing (well apart from the ego), thats TOTO.

- Rosanna is a very complicated song to record and sing, just count the number of instruments being used in the below song. All of these instruments could have created noise, but they create music, why, that's simply because its TOTO :)

And all of this I realized only after having known TOTO for more than 15 years as just a band!

Makes you realize so much of time spent drooling over unnecessary things and playing in mud while legends were out there entertaining the world live!

Cheers,

PS - It would be better to use a good set of headphones or speakers, because the song Rosanna is really enjoyable if you can decipher all of the instruments (drums, sax, bass, keyboard, piano, guitar, trumpets, congo)

PPS - I had to post this comment. Thats Rosanna shuffle or Porcaro shuffle!

Of Books and reading

 As I was caught up with work and work in the past month, I could not write, but that did not stop me from reading, it was three months into 2021 and my play station was keeping me busy.

But once Far Cry 5 got over, yeah I completed playing the full story, I was on the look out for more PS4 games. But most of them were and are expensive. Mafia definitive edition, Sniper Elite 4, Sniper Elite 3, Dirt rally 2.0.

So decided to read something with the available time, also, was tired of seeing monitor for long that, I did want to change that, though ironically, kindle too is a digital device. But no complaints.

Read - Jim Corbett, Edd China, autobiography, am reading Rudyard Kilpling autobiography - which happens to be cut short.

Have also purchased and downloaded multiple books,

1. Theft of India.

2. The Hindoo Holiday

3. Agatha Christie - Mysterious affair at Styles.

Best part of all the three books are they are based on-or before Victorian era. I am as always curious of life when technology was bare minimum. Reading Kipling's autobiography reminds me that alongside technology, medicine too was still premature, going by his description of pandemics, sad, but true.

I always regretted not having read much Agatha Christie, now is the time to reclaim I feel. There are many more titles on my kindle, but short of time.

Also today, got Hitman First Edition delivered for my Play station, so this will be my next game which I shall play. Hopefully I get to write as well.

Cheers,