Change in my Office timings

I was staying in Kamalanagar and my office is in Bannerghatta road. Office to Home is 20km distance. I was to leaving home at 7.30am, and reach office by 8.15am. And Leave office any time after 4.30pm. I was so used to this timing and most of the days I avoided traffic.
As we (my husband and myself) spent more time traveling to and forth to office, we decided to shift to HSR Layout. I am not a person who can look at the city map and find the route to the destination. I need to go with someone to know the route. Since HSR was new for me I decided to take office cab facility for one month.

We are 4 who take one cab. I am picked at HSR around 9.15am. And cab starts from office at around 7.30pm. At 7pm I closed my system and went to read the newspaper. Security personnel was astonished to see me in office at 7pm. He asked me why am I in office still. I gave him the explanation. Before he asked 90% of the team members had asked me the same question and had given them the reason. One colleague thought there was some problem with his watch J
Second day my colleague who leaves very near to my house dropped me and I went back early. Third day again I had to stay back till 7.30pm. 10% of the team members who had not seen me on other day were surprised to see me so late in office. I was taking staircase to go down to parking lot, then security at 1st floor called me. He said why madam not getting your car? Yours used to be first car. Looked like he missed my car in parking lot. I played my story again there.
Change in my schedule has raised question in so many people.
I will change my schedule again next month, no not to check how many people ask me, but was to get rid of cab.

Day 1

Company I work for announced merger with another company couple of months back.
Very frequently we got merger update mails. From one month along with merger update we were seeing about "Day 1" a new entry in the merger update mail.
Since New Year was nearing we thought (at least I thought) “Day 1” is Jan 1st.

Last week we got a mail mentioning December 1st is day 1 and stay tuned for more updates. One after the other mails floated and looked to be a big day. 29th November got a mail requesting all employees to vacate the office on 30th November by 6.30pm for them to make arrangements.
I was thinking what arrangements they will do? They also notified that higher management would welcome the employees after 8.30am on December 1st.

I am an early bird to office, but didn’t wanted to miss higher management welcoming me, so reached office at 8.45am. New logo was at the gate that gave a feeling of loosing the old identity of the company. As they say change is the only constant thing life I accepted the change in logo. I entered the gate and came to the entrance of office. Was surprised with the arrangements they made. We were welcomed with a beautiful rose, day 1 agenda and also a chocolate.

Elevator door opened and guess what even elevator was decorated with beautiful roses. Entered our floor and couldn’t believe it’s the same office were I was working. Whole look gave a festive mood, and we Indians get holidays on almost all festivals and so didn’t get mood to work in a festive mood. We few discussed about new logo, decoration, agenda for the day. Can say did everything other than work. Around 10.30am or 11am started to work. Around 12noon managers came to everyone at desk and congratulated for the new company and also welcomed to the new company.

12.45pm is our lunchtime and being in festive mood decided to go out for lunch. But one colleague asked us to have lunch in our own cafeteria as the food is good that day. We had lunch in cafeteria and really food was wonderful. After lunch again back to work. Around 3.30pm managers asked us to gather, this usually happens in our team to celebrate Birthdays and Anniversary’s in that month. But this time it was to celebrate Day 1 of the new company. We all got bouquet of roses and a seasonal greeting card. Manager mentioned that roses and card was not for employee alone but was for the family as without the support of family we probably wouldn’t be what we are now.

Then it was time for cake cutting. We all gathered in cafeteria had the nice pastry. Agenda had program till 9.30pm, due to some personal work I had to end my involvement for the Day 1 function and had to take care of personal work.
This was the first merger I was part of and we were apprehensive about the merger, but it was un-avoidable and hope it’s for better. Have to thank the management to make it a wonderful day.

Day Good/Bad

Tuesday 28th November 2006, I reached office as usual at around 8.20am. There were couples of mails in the mailbox. US colleagues had come back from “Thanks giving” vacation and lots of issues reported. Who likes to hear about problems in their code, even I felt bad to read mails about only issues. Thought a Bad day.

But I had to start working to fix the problems and started looking at that. Usually logs provided will be insufficient and finding the root cause of the problem takes time. But that day logs were sufficient and could find the root cause for almost all issues. So thought Day is not that bad.

I have telecon every day at 6.30pm. So I go home and take the call. I left office at around 5pm so that I can reach home on time. I might have come a kilometer from office and I found front tier gone flat. Should this also happen the same day? “Bhagvaan deta hai to chappad bhadke deta hai” so true.

But again I could get hold of mechanic to fix. I couldn’t reach home before 6.30pm. So parked the car on road and attended the meeting. Day was more of problems and getting it fixed.
End of the day I couldn’t make out if it was a bad day or a good day.

Song From Movie “Lakeer” Sung by Daler Mehendi

I came to know about Daler Mehendi from Songs “ Bolo tara ra ra” and “Tunak Tunak tun” I always wondered why people like his voice/songs. They sound so similar and I felt his songs lacked expression( Bhava in kannada). No doubt his songs were the first choice for any college dance function at that time.Then he became famous for Duplicate Passport, but that didn’t stop him from singing for films. In glamour world any publicity is good publicity. Same happened to Daler I guess.
Around this time I happened to listen to “nachle na na nachale ,jara tal tal nachale” from “Lakeer”. I love that song. And guess what it’s sung by “Daler Mehendi”.I still don’t like his voice, but I like this song.
PS: I am not sure whether he recorded "nachale na na nachale" first or passport case was first.

Songs and ME

One of my hobbies is to listen to music. I love to sing too, but no one likes to listen :-) I listen to Kannada, Hindi and English songs. I listen to folk, filmy, pop. But I don’t like rock music.

Most of the time I hum the song, which have good lyrics. Even though music catches attention first, lyrics remains for longer time in my mind. I won’t know the movie name, actors, location anything about the song but I will know the lyrics of the song.

Many enjoy the music even if they don’t get the lyrics of the song. I can’t enjoy a song if I don’t understand the meaning. When I listen to Tamil version of “Roja” song I hum Hindi lyrics.
If I like the song I can listen to same song whole day. I don’t get bored. I learn the lyrics and tune and then I can hum for myself whenever I want to listen to the song.

I listen to song sung by anyone and everyone. Sometimes I don’t like the voice of singer but if the song is good I listen to it. But vice versa song not good and it is sung by my favorite even then I won’t listen to the song.

I like S Janaki, Kavitha Krishna Murthy, Sunidhi C, Chitra and Lata ( her old songs and not new)among female singers. PBS and Sonu Nigam among male singers. Nowadays started liking Kunal Ganjawala.

Among Ghazal singers I like Pankaj Udas, Jagjit Singh and not to forget Gulam Ali. Kannada Bhavageete I like C Ashwath, what a great Singer. How energetic his songs are, my battery charges hearing to his songs.

Same with songs sung by Sunidhi. She gives her 100% to all the songs she sings whether it’s melodious (Songs of Chameli) or fast track (Mast, Khaki list goes on). Listening to songs by anyone of these Singers make me happy.

My favorite song list is huge. List has songs from old black and movie till today. Most of them are all time favorite.
Most of the days I listen to same song whole day. I call it song of the day. Today its “TangaLiyalli nanu teli bamde” from Janma Janmada AnubaMdha” Thanks to my friend for letting me know the movie name. I liked the song but didn’t know movie name to listen to song.

But Probably I don’t like the song, which has any word, repeated multiple times in the same song. For example I don’t like “manase o manse” from Chandramukhi PraNasaKhi”. Many till date like this song. Recently I heard “tanana tananam amtha hesaru” song, new movie I guess. I don’t know the name. But I don’t like the song.

Music has become the part of life. I sometime imagine what if there were no radio/TV and Tape? Everyone had to listen to their own voice :-)

Back To School

Its long time I completed 7th Std. I did in a village near Sorab Taluk, Shimoga District. We had 2/3 three teachers to handle from 1st to 7th Std. My mother says, I knew 2nd std poems when I was in 1st and so on because we used to have combined classes.

Till 7th Std My mother taught me . I did learn in Kannada medium till 7th.Now I work in a software company. Thanks to my parents and relatives for whatever I am today. I know how difficult it is to educated in life studying in village when there is no support from parents. Govt schools in Bangalore is similar to schools in village at that time for many reasons. One,village people didn't give more importance to education same with the parents of govt school kids in Bangalore now. I wanted to help such kids in knowing the importance of education. I got such opportunity when I joined DSF.

From 3/4 months I am going to Govt Primary school on Saturday to teach English/maths to the govt school kids. There are few kids who are really interested to learn things, and there are few who probably don't know the importance of education.Its little difficult to make these kids learn things though not impossible.

As usual I went this Saturday to School at 9.15am. We are 5 to 6 volunteers who go regularly. This Saturday they got late and I was waiting for them. I Was listening to music sitting outside. School Headmaster didn't like me sitting outside he asked me to sit in office room. I went and sat there and couldn't listen to music, so switched off radio. I didn't had any other work than listening to the headmaster and teacher discussion in office room.

Head Master had work in Banks and so he had to go to Bank, he was expecting few visitors too, but didn't knew what time visitor will be coming. He told the teacher, he will go to bank and if someone comes asking for him, give a missed call and he will come back :-)
I was surprised, its not that I didn't know he had a mobile nor that I am not aware of missed calls. But how technology has helped us. We probably can't imagine a day without a mobile now. But didn't we leave without all that few years back?
When I heard that discussion , I remembered a incident which my mother told me.
When I was in nursery my father used to drop me and come back to hospital. My father is a doctor and he was posted in a village that time. One day when my father was away to drop me to nursery his boss came to hospital. Hospital and our house was in single compound. He asked my mother where is my father and when he will be back. She told him my father went to drop me to school and he will be back in few minutes. Boss asked will he come back, my mother replied he will drop daughter and come back and he will not be sitting in nursery. If we had mobile at that time Boss would have called/given a missed call to my father :-). We didn't had even a phone in that village at that time.

Even though I go to school now on Saturdays so many things are changed. Back to school yes but not back to good olden days.

Big Books and Me

From the college days I always liked small books compared to big books only when its theoretical subjects.
Same stand when it comes to novels. I will read 3 small books but don't want to read a single big book.


I have a friend who reads all books, whether it’s big or small.

When I want to borrow a book from her to read, I always ask her how big the book is :-)

I borrow books from my friends and I am a member of Govt. Library. When I don't have books borrowed from friends I get books from library. Few days back I picked up a book "Omme Nakka Nagu" By Tarasu from library. Isn't the title beautiful? At least for me it was and I picked up that book. I started reading; it went on and on and on. At a moment I felt like not to read full but return. I didn't do that, I guess I have inherited my father’s character “never leave anything in the middle” (But I stop watching serials when they drag a lot.). So I read the complete book.

I told my friends what a horrible book. To be frank I hated the story, way narrated. In short hated everything except the title. To top with I have asked them not to read that book too .

Then my friend asked me to read "Durgastmana" by TARASU. I thought by this time my friend will know I don't read big books. So I didn't ask her how big the book is. I went to library and searched for Durgastamana. To my surprise it was a biiiiiiiiiiiig book. But I am now surprised with my behavior, I hated the previous book I read written by TARASU, I hated big book and I didn't like history, social study when in school still brought that book to read!!!!.


I started reading and believe me I just fell in love with book. I always have a habit to read the book from preface. Whether its technical or novel. So I started with preface of this book too.
When I read preface I was sure I wouldn't regret for getting the huge book.
And I wasn't wrong.Now I love that book to the core. Contrary to the previous experience I loved the way TARASU narrated the story (Known story to all probably).
Believe me while reading the book I was praying god to help “Madakarinayaka” to win the battle against “Haider Ali”. It sounds silly right? I know but I couldn't stop feeling that way.

I am thankful to her for suggesting such a fantastic book.
Will I start liking big books ? not sure:-)


But I want to read few more historical novels by TARASU. Of course I prefer smaller books :-)