Never a dull moment

This week ,I will be shifting to a furnished accommodation in Jaipur. It is the entire first floor of a two storey bungalow in Civil Lines. So I will have top government dignitories and Governor of the state in the neighbourhood. Staying in such a locality ensures that there are no problems for water and electricity. Unlike my recent stint in Chennai, this is going to be different. I had spent my youth in Chennai and still have a wide range of social contacts. At Jaipur, I do not have any social contacts. Not being a metro, the city may not offer wide the range of activities. Setting shop is going to be easy as the accommodation has everything except gas stove and gas connetion in kitchen and a television. I have brought both from Chennai. So it is a plug and play situation. I have planned to go on long walks to get back to shape. I have been taking it easy on fitness front. I have gained some weight and my dresses are crying for breath ! On the office front, it is going to be a stres...

The week which went by at Jaipur was a stunning week. Jaipur is a beautiful city with wide roads and good green canopy. People are also pleasant and well behaved. There is a royal grandeur about all structures and public buildings in Jaipur. The round abouts with various statues can put Lutyen's Delhi to shame. The Central Park is large for a city of Jaipur's population. The jogging track running around this park is 3.74 km long ! St Xavier's school is a stunning building. Some of my collegues have been fortunate to pass through the portals of this institution. There are many such institutions all over the city and I intend doing a recce in a couple of weeks. Chennai has only handful of such structures - Madras University, Loyola College, Madras Christian College.... What stunned me was the first official communication handed over to me in the corridors of government department when I went calling for the meeting... It is a practical example for the adage one man's fo...

Once again I am finding myself in a new city where I do not have any social contacts. My career has taken to many cities I have never visited before like Kanpur and Patna. Now I am at Jaipur which I have visited as a tourist on a few occassions. We had a family of relatives here until a couple of years back. I have to start social life on a clean slate. As I am getting on in age, I am finding this aspect tougher as years roll by. Jaipur is a clean royal city. The pink city is the old city with the usual problem of narrow roads and congestion. The new city which is growing outside the walled pink city is a sprawling metropolis with wide roads and big parks withsome large palaces and temples too. Starting life all over again is a tough task but the silver lining is new people and new culture one gets to interact with. It also provides e an opportunity to visit other important cities in Rajastan like Jodhpur, Bikaneer, Jaisalmer and Bharatpur. I feel the pace of life would not be unrelent...

I have worked at different locations in India through my career so far. I had fairly long stints at some locations. One thing I have avoided whenever I left an organisation was fairwell get together. It hurts. I moved from Chennai to Jaipur bag baggage three days back ( on 18/09/09 to be precise ). The feelings were different from all the previous occassions. Here I was moving laterally from one location to another 2000 km away with a huge difference. The set up at Chennai started as an one man show an year and half back with me holding fort alone for a month and a half. Two months into action , our team was four strong. We did everything from sending out handwritten envelopes inviting candidates for interviews to receiving the would be associates at bus stations. It was a humbling experience with most of those made an offer not turning up. It bruised our pride and left us wondering how our project would take off. A large pool of us used to operate two laptop computers. Space was a big...

Time magazine brought out a special issue on Michael Jackson. I am not a music buff. That is not to say that I have not listened to songs of MJ. The magazine carried several photos of MJ as a child artiste. The cherubic face and impish smile touched me. A talented person who could have given much more to the world of music and music lovers has made an untimely departure. I wonder whether it would have been of help if some leading personalities of different walks of life tried to persuade MJ to mend his ways so that the music world could be further enriched by his contribution. MJ’s behavior and public interactions have been bizarre for a decade. Part of it could be publicity stunt but major factor had to do something with his personality. There was some insecurity and longing / craving for things we in the public are unable to fathom. But is privacy so important that some well meaning leaders of the society could not have tried to persuade MJ to change himself for better ? Or is it tha...

I am a reasonably good traveller and enjoy travelling. I tend to strike conversation fellow travellers or try reading. I prefer conversation to reading. This post is about waiting at the terminus when the transport vehicle is delayed. Most of the buas stations in India are horrible and waiting for a bus which is delayed is a painful experience. The bus stations are filthy and the eateries in the bus stations and surroundings are of poor quality. Generally there is a lot of litter all around and air is thick with the smell of daily ablution of the floating public. The other two modes of long distance travel are trains and aircrafts. I prefer waiting in a railway station than at an airport though the airports tend to be airconditioned while railway stations are not. Railway stations are cleaner than bus stations and could do better. One can all sorts of people in the railway station. From the porter eagerly waiting for a passenger ladden with goods to station master to a vendor selling p...

When one is bringing up kids, it is often a dilemma when to stop treating them as kids. We have two daughters. Both were friendly as toddlers and had no problem with new faces in the house and public. As a dad I carried them around a lot though my wife used to admonish me for doing this as they started to move from toddlerhood to being kids to childhood. My elder girl was far too heavy for any woman to carry her around by the time she was a year and half old. So I had the sole privilege of carrying her around after this age. Those men who were brave enought to attempt to carry her used to give up in a matter of minutes. Since I am well built, I could carry her around without much effort till she was three years old. As she grew older, those who attempted to lift her just gave up with a sudden loud sigh the way the weight lifters in Olympics give up when the weights are too heavy. My younger girl was of more than adequate weight but not heavy like my elder girl. So she was carried arou...