Happy Friendship Day.

My dear best friend,

I have been missing you very much lately. More than you, I am missing the time spent together. I have your number and have thought many times to give a call. But, then I feel making a call will dissolve the memories, I have treasured for long. What if you have changed and what if I don't feel the same warmth as before. I don't want to give away the only thing I am left with as a token of your friendship: memories of time spent together and all the silliness we have done together. After all we have not really talked in years like we used to. What if you have moved on and have left old relations and friendships way back. But, then I think, we have shared common things in past. So even if you are changed now, we should still have similarities. And that makes me believe that you will be missing me as well. With that note, I smile and wishes you a very Happy Friendship day.

If you read it and get the message that this is for you, then we still share the special bond. If not then, I will hold the memories in my heart to be cherished forever.

 Luv,
 -Neeru

Home is Home

All desis who come to US either short term or long term, have one thing in common: One day, they want to go back to their country. We are no exception. Like rest of us, we came here thinking that we will be back in couple of years. And like most of us, we are here for more than five years now. But recently, we have been contemplating plans to move back. I have assigned a dead line to myself. Have decided that if we don't go back by next year end, then we are no more thinking about going back.

Relocating is always a big thing. When it comes to relocating to a different country miles away its even more difficult. But with my goal in mind, I asked one of my friends who recently went back about how do they feel. Since they have been in the same boat, their experience is quite relevant. She gave me the answer I was looking for. She said, you need to have a clear idea why are you coming back. Life is not easy as in States. Even if there is lot of progress being made but lot of challenges still remain, specially in day to day life. You can easily get frustrated by the system. It takes a lot of time and effort to get obvious things done. You can easily get frustrated and start regretting. But when that happens, you need to remember the actual reason why you moved back. That made me thinking, and here is this post to myself, elaborating why I want to go back:

1) First on the list is the Festivals: Even though, by no means we are a very enthusiastic family who celebrates festivals with a bang, but its the euphoria around you which touches you. When you see the chamak of Diwali lights everywhere, be it on roads, offices, TV soaps or neighbors, you automatically come into the mood of celebration. You can not remain untouched when you see your neighbors whitewashing their homes or making rangoli outside. Its the child hood memories of festivals which makes me celebrate those. I want to show my kids the same heritage.

I don't want to think about office on Diwali. Sheer joy of greeting one another or exchanging gifts and sweets with friends and family on common festivals is overwhelming. I miss going in a packed shop to buy beautiful bangles just before karwachauth or shop for the best rakhi for my dearest brother. I miss the Janamashtami night when all the temples in street are adorned and kids drees up like kanhiya ji or gopis. I miss the colors of Holi even though I never liked drenching up in water. I miss the moongfali and revrhi and 'Sunda Mundriye' of Lorhi. I miss the early morning going to rooftop for flying kites on Sankranti.

Yes, there are many festivals here, but I still have not learnt how to celebrate those. Basically, I am ignorant and don't really know what you do on those days (Thanks giving, Christmas). Yes we get holidays on those days, but that makes it even more tough. Holiday means nothing is available in market. You can not even go to mall or restaurants. I remember searching for at least one pizza joint on thanks giving with no luck. So you can not go out and since I have no family here I can not go to them as well to celebrate. Since, I don't know what to do on these days, I wonder how kids will learn. NO, its not the life I want for myself or for them.

2) Family: As its obvious from #1 that fun of celebrating any festival or a special day is when your loved ones are around. My family is miles and miles away. It not even possible to make a phone call when I truly miss them. I have to look at clock to decide if its appropriate to call. So, that leaves me with weekends to talk. Even when I make a call, its difficult to relate to the mindset of the other person. They are almost ready to hit the bed if I call in the morning. I am in my morning rush of preparing breakfast or taking shower or start the day. Its so difficult to relate to one another.

Now here, I am talking about first family, but what about extended family. Its been so long since I spoke to my masis or bhuas. I don't get time and since they have to make International calls I can't blame them for not calling me. Making phone call itself is so difficult so its a no brainer that you can't think of meeting your family or extended family members. My son is 15 months now and no one except my mom has seen him yet. My grand mom passed away last year and I could not even meet her in more than five years. She could not see her first great grand son.

Weddings, two years ago I almost cancelled my trip to attend my own sister's wedding. Forget about cousins or friends. I have not seen any of my cousin's better halves or kids yet. I miss attending weddings and being part of all traditions. I miss getting crazy while shopping for wedding ahead. I miss getting together with cousins and their kids. I want to see my brothers and sisters more often. I want our kids to grow together.

From my child hood the sweetest and most cherished memories I have, are those when we went to naani k ghar on each summer vacation. Wonder where will my kids go or will they even understand naani or maamu ka ghar. Will they ever get the chance of being pampered by younger maamu or maasi.

Its not just about happy times. In this far away country, whom to call when you need someone when you are sick or at hospital. Yes, we have been fortunate to have some good friends around, but still its difficult. Same time, what to do when your family needs you. You cannot just buy a ticket and fly.

3) Language, Clothes : Yes, I can speak English and can understand it with accent now. But, that is not my language. I cannot express myself in this foreign language. I still can neither crack a joke nor can I understand one in English. I don't get their context and am sure they don't get mine either. I am unable to feel that personal touch with people I see daily. Though people here are more nice and polite than my own people, still I cannot relate to them. Their problems are different, their way of living life or work is different. As my visa status says, I feel like an alien.

Coming to clothes, its not like after moving back to India, I will start wearing saree to office. I will still wear the comfortable jeans. But, I love my desi dresses, the vibrant colors, the beautiful bangles, Heavy embroidery or soft silk.

4) Movies: Hollywood movies might be more logical and more practical and fun but I want to watch apni Bollywood movies. The larger than life stars, their promotions, tv shows, their masala news. That fills up a big part of your day. I still have not figured out a single tv serial here which I like and I wait for.

5) Food: Food is not at the bottom, but I am just not that hungry right now. Yes, there are more cuisines here. You can get Italian, Japnese or Thai or Mexican whatever you want to, but nothing can beat the swad of eating tikki chat or ragdha samosa or pani poori from roadside (I admit I might not be able to eat that anymore, even after going back. Call it NRI effect). What about mouth watering desi sweets, Jalebis or amertis or lassi makhan maar k.

6) Roads: Oh yes I miss roads. I know roads and infrastructure are terrible in India. But I want to get back my ability to walk on roads and streets. I don't want to drive a car for 10 mins walkable distance. I want to do window shoppping at paalika bazar and commercial street walking.

There are many more subtle things. Even though, I love the personal independence and opportunity I get in this country and the convenience and security it offers, but home is home. As I always say, you can go to a five start hotel for a vacation but soon you start missing home no matter how unorganized that is. I want to go HOME soon. Disclaimer: This is by no means a generic post. It is very subjective and personal. Different people can have different priorities and they make choices based on that. There is no wrong in either staying here or going back. Ultimately, its what makes you happy. This post is mainly for myself. Its a note to self, which, I can look upon whenever, I make my choice.

I envy home makers.

Till date I felt proud in calling myself an ambitious career oriented girl. But, I envy those women who have an option to sit back home and do the daily chores. Home makers, who don't feel guilty of not working. They get all the happiness by making delicious dishes for their husband and kids and extended family members and friends. They may get worried about increasing food prices but fluctuation in stock market does not bother them. Few words of appreciation for the food they prepared give them more happiness than an annual salary review. Their happiness quotient is far too higher than any average working woman. They get all the pleasure of life. They get the privilege of seeing their kids growing. Yes, they may have their days of stress and discomfort when they need to bear their mother in laws all day long. But then, that is better than jellofi (bear) your arrogant boss. They can take nap when they feel drowsy and go for shopping whenever they feel like. They don't need to sip cups and cups of kaffine to pretend that they are awake.

Wonder why the heck people call these home workers, soft and weak.They have actually got the covetous job which all the working people aspire for.

My dream company.

When I was a student, I wanted to be a teacher. Because, I always had many ideas to make teaching better, to improve students performance and to teach life lessons to them. I got this opportunity for a short while after college. I feel very content with the way I taught. Mainly, because my class not only loved me, but I earned respect from them. I am not saying this to just appreciate myself, but students have shared these feelings. Best proof is, even after more than five years they are in touch and ask my opinion in making choices. Class's overall passing percentage was more than 80% (without any outside coaching). Same class had 20 -30% success rate in other subjects. This was a great feeling of content. I think my, childhood lessons paid an important role in being successful as teacher. I hope to teach sometime again in my life.

After teaching, I have been working as software engineer for many years now. Have got chance to work with both big giants and small start ups. While working, I always dream about how will my own company (one day) look like. Here are my thoughts:

* No one in my dream company will work for more than eight hours a day. That includes lunch and tea breaks. Along with that will ensure that no one actually works less than seven hours a day. I have spent 12 hours at office. But never any good came out of that. Mostly, the time I spent beyond normal hours deteriorated the quality. Forced me to work more the next day to fix the mistakes I did, when I was tired. Needless to say, demotivated me and increased my frustration.

* Working hours will be 9-5, 10-6 or 11-7. That will give people flexibility of time, but they will still have common hours to work with each other.

* Saturdays will be the optional holidays. Employee can either take off on Saturday or on any other week day. This will give employees more time to finish their chores. As most of the businesses are close on official weekends.

* This is difficult to implement but my favorite. From my personal experience, there have been times, when I had no work to do. but could not leave office before 6 PM. You all know why. In my dream company, it will be target based. Any one who accomplishes his tasks/targets on time can leave for the day without any guilt. Of course, its not straight forward to implement. But its achievable. Just need to take care of many other factors before implementing this. Like ensuring that everyone has enough work in front of them before start of day and every one is self motivated and have the feeling of ownership.

* Each employee will have 1-1 session with their mentors at least once in a month(Not managers). This solves two purposes. First, the mentor feels powerful as he gets a chance to lecture some one (everyone loves that). Second, this helps in understanding the employees expectations and provides a platform to motivate him and explain him the common motives of company. Usually, company's have annual reviews. But those reviews are used as means of promoting or firing employees. All through the year, employee never gets to know about his weaknesses or strengths. This not only demotivates but also adds frustration.

* To accomplish above, One important aspect needs to be taken care. Give mentors authority to make decisions. This is more essential from the juniors point view of whom the mentor is grooming. This imparts confidence in them, that if they share some thing with their mentor, he will take care of it. And obviously, it imparts motivation and ownership in mentors.

----Contd

Many of these points are sheer common sense, but still not found commonly.

10 reasons I love twitter for,

10 reasons I love twitter because:

1) I can follow any one without waiting for their approval. And Anyone means anyone from SRK to Bill Gates and learn about them. Get first hand information than hyped media.

2) Unlike facebook or orkut, I don't feel obliged to write comments on the status message or photos.

3) I can get the trends and see what other people in my region are thinking.

4) I can get to know about any internet service(Gmail/FB etc) going down by searching for live tweets and can make sure its not just me. (This one is my favorite.)

5) I can search for holiday plans and get ideas.

6) I can follow various events at my local library and neighbor hood club.

7) I can follow my favorite companies and get to know what are they up to.

8) I learn to be more precise in my thoughts since I got to express myself in 140 chars.

9) I don't get to peek in others life in which I am not interested. I don't feel the stress of my tweet being liked or disliked.

10) In the end I feel connected to the world but still get my own space.

Thank God they did not blame Pakistan for the mess at CWG.

Have been hearing about Common wealth games for past eight years. Madam Sheila Dixit won three consecutive terms because she was projected as making Apni Dilli a world class city on behest of CWG. Finally, the most awaited year 2010 arrived and all the preparation started tasting bitter. For past couple of months am listening and reading about it in all the papers. Today was extreme. I almost fell into tears while listening to BBC on the way to office. Why is it that each time word 'India' appears on TV/Radio its always associated with corruption & poverty. Still have doubts whether its the poverty which makes people corrupt or its the other way around.

Have many 'whats' and 'whys' in my mind. But want to think deeper. Is it just because of corrupt politicians and contractors.

Not explaining what is going at CWG but have many questions.

1) Why did India take this project? Was it just because our neighbour flaunted its power in Olympics.

2) Even if the govt took this project and wanted to showcase the shining India, why were these contracts not distributed to private firms.

3) When will out bureaucratic system end? When will people start taking responsibility? But the bigger question: Is it only a problem with 'Babu logs' or is it the issue with our basic upbringing. I believe its the attitude. I have seen in many occasions that even in prestigious IT sector other than handful of people most of the guys still want to enjoy the luxuries of Babu's without actually doing any good work. Even if they are forced to meet targets the quality of work is not equivalent to their international peers.

4) Where did billions go? If they had spent even 1/4th of the money on actual development of Delhi at least they could have contained river Yamuna.

List keeps growing. I don't know how the issues can be solved but I just want to know how can I be a part of change. In the end I just thank God that "They are not blaming this failure to Pakistan."

Good old days.

I was trying to make a call to my mom. But she was not picking up. Tried multiple times but in vain. I got little worried. So, tried our neighbor's phone. After talking I felt relaxed. But, moments later, started thinking. In this era of mobile phones, when I don't event remember my own mobile number, I could recall three of my neighbors' numbers. That made me nostalgic and took me to my childhood memories.

I remembered these numbers because our entire street got their landlines on the same day. Three of us have phone numbers in sequence(34006/07/08). I clearly remember the day when we got these numbers. We had applied for land line for four years. The process of installing wires in our region took weeks. And one fine day, telephone exchanges waale uncle came to each of our house and installed the handsets. We all kids were too excited and so were our parents.

Before this, almost four streets shared one phone. I am talking about long before STDs and PCSs became popular. There was only one house in the entire region which had phone. Each one of us gave that number to our relatives as emergency contact number. That uncle was a retired army person. He used to charge 50 paisa to listen to his phone. Thinking about it now makes me laugh.

Whenever my sister and I visited our relatives' place who had phone, we made calls to our friends when no body could see us. Infact sometimes that was the only reason we visited them.

No need to say that time has changed. Now there are more phones in a home than number of family members. But Those were good old days.