Friday, September 25, 2009
Saturday, September 5, 2009
She...
When I joined at my new work (the current work), my office/desk used to be on a different floor. This floor is of SQA folks, where I found everyone to be very friendly, talking around, joking around. A lively place and I being new bee to the company and coming from a start up loved this stress free work place. I also made most of my friends in this company during those initial days. There were few friends, with who I used go for lunch/coffee outs, chit-chat when ever we bump into each other discussing about many things not really related to the work, complimenting each other etc.
After few months of this stress free work phase, I had to move out of this floor. As soon as I moved out of this place the reality of new work struck me! So far I was sitting away from my team members and my manager! due to lack of space in that floor. With that “new joinee” tag I was enjoying my time learning and getting to know this new domain! Once I moved to this floor, everything changed, my manager was sitting just in front of me, all teammates around and I was assigned many defects to debug and fix them! I also would see all my team members work very hard to make those dead ends meet. The actual learning had just begun. Looks like at that very same time this recession bug was hitting everyone and work pressure knew no boundaries. With all these things in place I hardly visited the floor I joined as new bee and met those people only during some all handles or company bashes/celebrations.
Today while running around the labs, I happen to bump into one of my first floor co-workers. It was nice seeing her after a long time. We exchanged usual hellos and noticed that she seemed very pale and dull. There was no charm on her face which I was familiar with. Then I thought to myself that she must be real busy with work and due to that stress she looks like. However still casually I asked her “how is every thing other than work?” I heard her answer but that left me in a utter shock and I could not talk anything further, I thought I heard some thing wrong and I just blinked and asked her “sorry to hear that what happened?“ She said “he had brain cancer which was not diagnosed and I lost him on Jan 1st! “ She told me how she lost her husband on January 1st, when whole world was celebrating a New Year. By now she has learned how to be composed and not break down while talking, however my eyes were misty. While talking I also learned that she was married for 10 years now and they did not have kids. She was married at very young age and she almost grew up with him here in USA. She was telling “I don’t know what to do next and I’m still trying to cope with the loss, which is irreplaceable, those memories haunt me…” I spoke to her for 10 more minutes, came back and sat at my desk, but her words continued to haunt me. May God give her the strength to cope up with her loss and time heal her all wounds. A person who lost a life died once, but the one close to them die everyday... till those memories fade away....may his soul rest in peace...
After few months of this stress free work phase, I had to move out of this floor. As soon as I moved out of this place the reality of new work struck me! So far I was sitting away from my team members and my manager! due to lack of space in that floor. With that “new joinee” tag I was enjoying my time learning and getting to know this new domain! Once I moved to this floor, everything changed, my manager was sitting just in front of me, all teammates around and I was assigned many defects to debug and fix them! I also would see all my team members work very hard to make those dead ends meet. The actual learning had just begun. Looks like at that very same time this recession bug was hitting everyone and work pressure knew no boundaries. With all these things in place I hardly visited the floor I joined as new bee and met those people only during some all handles or company bashes/celebrations.
Today while running around the labs, I happen to bump into one of my first floor co-workers. It was nice seeing her after a long time. We exchanged usual hellos and noticed that she seemed very pale and dull. There was no charm on her face which I was familiar with. Then I thought to myself that she must be real busy with work and due to that stress she looks like. However still casually I asked her “how is every thing other than work?” I heard her answer but that left me in a utter shock and I could not talk anything further, I thought I heard some thing wrong and I just blinked and asked her “sorry to hear that what happened?“ She said “he had brain cancer which was not diagnosed and I lost him on Jan 1st! “ She told me how she lost her husband on January 1st, when whole world was celebrating a New Year. By now she has learned how to be composed and not break down while talking, however my eyes were misty. While talking I also learned that she was married for 10 years now and they did not have kids. She was married at very young age and she almost grew up with him here in USA. She was telling “I don’t know what to do next and I’m still trying to cope with the loss, which is irreplaceable, those memories haunt me…” I spoke to her for 10 more minutes, came back and sat at my desk, but her words continued to haunt me. May God give her the strength to cope up with her loss and time heal her all wounds. A person who lost a life died once, but the one close to them die everyday... till those memories fade away....may his soul rest in peace...
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Continued...Hum hai raahi pyar ke...
We had one kind of great confusion [or comedy of errors?] to find our camp ground. Every one of us just half a mile away from the camp ground and was struggling to locate the place. I can not forget that muddy road, near the garbage pit which we thought was our camp ground!! In fact we went ahead and drove to the dead end to find nothing but a barren land! Later drove back to find all others on their way to that very same place! It was no body’s fault, GPS was directing everyone to that garbage pit :) Out of 5 cars, and except for one every one gathered there and collectively started looking for our actual ground! At least after taking couple of U-turns, actually by following some other's car we figured out that tiny way to our camping site :) we all again went in line one after another to our final destination! Meanwhile the car missing was located, looks like they drove around the same place for 3 times! But could not figure out this road which was taking us to the actual camp ground! Finally we all 16 of us reached the ground, unloaded our heavy luggage from everyone’s car! Though we had 3 tents, but had booked 5 grounds, you see we need camp ground for our cars also! They were also camping with us in the open ground and under the sky! [The restriction was that one car/camp ground and we had 5 of them!]
All guys started putting up the tents at 3 camp grounds and we all girls started fixing the dinner! :P We had loads of food, main course had roti, daal-makhni, Khaju katli and sohan papadi was there for desert along with lemon rice, tomato rice, puliyogare and curd rice! Already darkness was invading the mountains and falling on us, air was well gelled with the coldness and we were almost shivering. Thankfully even before setting the tents, first thing we had done was to lit the campfire! The fire in the pit kept us warm and the hot food made our night indeed a fiesta in forest!
After dinner, we all moved to the next camp ground, where we lit again the camp fire and started preparing for BBQ, we had Paneer, onions, capsicum, sweet potato and potato! All of these stuck to a BBQ rod and spicy masala smeared all over was just mouth wateringly tasty! There we 16 of us sat around and preparing the BBQ, we had a guitarist who was entraining every one of us with the melodious songs. Midst of this suddenly we heard some phones ringing and yes one more couple was joining us and within no time the lovely couple was there before us!! We all, in the day time struggled to locate the place, went around couple of times before locating this place, this friend of us, drove in that dark night, new to California and after many hours of continuous travel made it to the camp ground with out getting lost anywhere!! We could not believe this :)Yes!! We were 18 of us in that night! A big crowd, as pointed out by one of our friend a team of stars, individually everyone made sure everything would go fine. Hats of to such a coordinating team!
The sky was clear, stars shining, moon smiling :) and breeze blowing the cold air took everyone to a different world I guess. We were tired enough to get a good night sleep. We all went into our respective tents and again we all 5 gals in one tent!! As soon we entered the tenets we started hearing some kind of noise and we all were scared to death thinking it’s a bear! But we realized that it’s wind blowing away the paper plates which we used for BBQ. After listening to a stories from one of our friend, 2 of other friends did not sleep for whole night! I guess one another friend and I are the only 2 slept without worrying about any bear stories J that too until early morning rays came and woke us up!
It was around 6 in the morning I guess, and sun was on our face! Just peeped out of the tent and see that snow covered mountains in their brightest white ever! The morning sun had spread all over the valley and reflections of frozen ice were all over. We all woke up, enjoyed the morning Sun and started preparing for breakfast! We made bread and omelet and tea!! Apart from this we had juice, fruit, biscuits, you name it and we had for our breakfast!! A real real king sized breakfast!
After our breakfast, we headed to the site seeing around! There we found one ski resort! [forgot the name now :(] We took a gondola ride there, went on top of the ice mountain, played in the snow as much as we want, took lots of pictures and roamed around in that snow. It was a white mountain, just snow and snow everywhere, people, kids, tourists skiing around, it was a spectacular view. We played till the lunch time and every one of us were really hungry. We headed for Mexican restauranta! And then to a Gull lake! A lake covered with beautiful snow covered mountains! Went for boating, it was a lazy afternoon, we in the mid of the lake parked it and were just basking under the Sun, talking about numerous things!
The evening was almost same as last one, except that we had little more fun, there were more songs, dances and games, with ongoing BBQ on the fire! This night every one of us slept peacefully I guess to wake up and pack to return back to our Silicon Valley! Our return too was filled with lots of fun, stopping at various vista points, posed for many pictures and bought lots of fruits (cherry, strawberries, etc) on the way from farmers markets! At around 7:00 PM on Monday evening we reached home, carrying all these sweet memories in our heart and mind forever :)
[PS: Tried to make this post as short as as possible, however still ended up this long... :D, tried to cover as much as possible, but I'm sure many more events might have already paged out of memory and not made it to this post... :)]
All guys started putting up the tents at 3 camp grounds and we all girls started fixing the dinner! :P We had loads of food, main course had roti, daal-makhni, Khaju katli and sohan papadi was there for desert along with lemon rice, tomato rice, puliyogare and curd rice! Already darkness was invading the mountains and falling on us, air was well gelled with the coldness and we were almost shivering. Thankfully even before setting the tents, first thing we had done was to lit the campfire! The fire in the pit kept us warm and the hot food made our night indeed a fiesta in forest!
After dinner, we all moved to the next camp ground, where we lit again the camp fire and started preparing for BBQ, we had Paneer, onions, capsicum, sweet potato and potato! All of these stuck to a BBQ rod and spicy masala smeared all over was just mouth wateringly tasty! There we 16 of us sat around and preparing the BBQ, we had a guitarist who was entraining every one of us with the melodious songs. Midst of this suddenly we heard some phones ringing and yes one more couple was joining us and within no time the lovely couple was there before us!! We all, in the day time struggled to locate the place, went around couple of times before locating this place, this friend of us, drove in that dark night, new to California and after many hours of continuous travel made it to the camp ground with out getting lost anywhere!! We could not believe this :)Yes!! We were 18 of us in that night! A big crowd, as pointed out by one of our friend a team of stars, individually everyone made sure everything would go fine. Hats of to such a coordinating team!
The sky was clear, stars shining, moon smiling :) and breeze blowing the cold air took everyone to a different world I guess. We were tired enough to get a good night sleep. We all went into our respective tents and again we all 5 gals in one tent!! As soon we entered the tenets we started hearing some kind of noise and we all were scared to death thinking it’s a bear! But we realized that it’s wind blowing away the paper plates which we used for BBQ. After listening to a stories from one of our friend, 2 of other friends did not sleep for whole night! I guess one another friend and I are the only 2 slept without worrying about any bear stories J that too until early morning rays came and woke us up!
It was around 6 in the morning I guess, and sun was on our face! Just peeped out of the tent and see that snow covered mountains in their brightest white ever! The morning sun had spread all over the valley and reflections of frozen ice were all over. We all woke up, enjoyed the morning Sun and started preparing for breakfast! We made bread and omelet and tea!! Apart from this we had juice, fruit, biscuits, you name it and we had for our breakfast!! A real real king sized breakfast!
After our breakfast, we headed to the site seeing around! There we found one ski resort! [forgot the name now :(] We took a gondola ride there, went on top of the ice mountain, played in the snow as much as we want, took lots of pictures and roamed around in that snow. It was a white mountain, just snow and snow everywhere, people, kids, tourists skiing around, it was a spectacular view. We played till the lunch time and every one of us were really hungry. We headed for Mexican restauranta! And then to a Gull lake! A lake covered with beautiful snow covered mountains! Went for boating, it was a lazy afternoon, we in the mid of the lake parked it and were just basking under the Sun, talking about numerous things!
The evening was almost same as last one, except that we had little more fun, there were more songs, dances and games, with ongoing BBQ on the fire! This night every one of us slept peacefully I guess to wake up and pack to return back to our Silicon Valley! Our return too was filled with lots of fun, stopping at various vista points, posed for many pictures and bought lots of fruits (cherry, strawberries, etc) on the way from farmers markets! At around 7:00 PM on Monday evening we reached home, carrying all these sweet memories in our heart and mind forever :)
[PS: Tried to make this post as short as as possible, however still ended up this long... :D, tried to cover as much as possible, but I'm sure many more events might have already paged out of memory and not made it to this post... :)]
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Hum hai raahi pyar ke...Fir milenge chalte chalte...
Well everything is said and done... highlights have been broadcasted, memories are being shared. However our camping we did for 2 nights and 3 days will last in every ones memory for very very long time to go and I can not stop but think about every moment we shared again and again.
We, a group of 16 people, started on a Saturday morning, 2 and half hours late (usual IST hmmm!?) than the scheduled time! Tried very hard to ramp up everything the night before at around 10 or 11 PM but failed miserably. Instead of going to bed early, slept late at 2 AM in the morning, just to wake up after few hours, it was not a nightly sleep but a siesta. Freshened up, packed up, picked up and ran (indeed made the car to run :) to the common meeting point. Everyone gathered to start to our exciting camping destination which was about 5-6 hours away on an overly crowded brightly lit super sunny day. We all by now knew each other pretty well, however there were few who we met for the first time, though it did not feel like our first meet :) Some thing common in everyone of us connected us instantly…
As we were a big group of 16, we 5 girls and rest all guys... After meeting at this location we all gals gel’d so well that, we all wanted to join together and travel in one single car! But dropped the idea and let the guys to take the lead and we girls enjoy the ride! So 5 cars started in line one after another waving and smiling at each other… to meet after an hour at our designated meeting point to take a quick break and for one surprise which was secretly(??!!) planned.
I guess we were the last car to reach that meeting point at one of raider’s museum, or in plain words a cowboy museum! I saw all our guys and gals standing in a line from a distance and thought that they are waiting to enter the museum, only after reaching there we learned that they were waiting for the lone restroom available in that place :D, one after another done using the restroom and entered the museum to return the keys and to take a look at it. We found lots of cow boy hats, medals, pictures of raiders. The curator of the museum was delighted to see such a big crowd, of which half was outside the museum! She welcomed us to explore the museum and shared the details with each of us. We waved her good bye and came out to find bunch of chits to be picked up by every one of us, except for the drivers' of the car. Yes we were shuffling ourselves into different cars! That was one great thing we did to break the ice and which allowed us to know each other better. It was indeed exciting to pick the chit and find our driver! It was lot more fun than anticipated, we picked around 3 times to get the right car J and everyone boarded the car and headed to the next stop which was Yosemite national park’s visitor center!
Yosemite national park, a wilderness filled with tall pine or sequoia trees, wild animals [which kept few of us wide awake in the night :P] deep valleys, high granite mountains and full of melting snow resulting into gushing water falls at every half mile. The end of a spring and blossoming summer made our drive a pleasant one. Half dome, bridal veil and cascade water falls were just a feast to the eyes and to the heart. I wonder how the vastness and beauty of the nature make us feel so humble in front of it; fill the heart with such a warm feeling, which I can not express in words. Though our car was limping at many places due the over crowded traffic [This being the first long weekend of the summer, I guess whole of US was on the road!] the serene beauty of the nature and the melodious songs playing in the car enthralled every one of us and took us to a different world.
At last we reached the Yosemite’s visitor center to find no parking available, parked for long time in a NO parking zone with hazard lights on! Tried reaching others but signal was not available. We finished our lunch by taking turn to baby sit the car in the no parking zone. Some how we were able to sync up with others and decided to meet them all once for all at camp ground and then started towards Tioga pass, which had just opened 2 days back!
Tioga pass, which means “where it forks” I guess it connects the west valley to the east. According to NG magazine, this is one of the most scenic routes in Sierra. But, just after the lunch we started driving and what did I do :) took a nap…in between I was woken up and asked to look at the beauty of nature, I guess I saw but did not realize its beauty until I returned on the same route… the mountains and those milky frozen lakes were just breath taking...
[PS: This is just half of our first day events, tried hard to make it short :) but still ended up this long! will come up with remaining part , hopefully soon...]
We, a group of 16 people, started on a Saturday morning, 2 and half hours late (usual IST hmmm!?) than the scheduled time! Tried very hard to ramp up everything the night before at around 10 or 11 PM but failed miserably. Instead of going to bed early, slept late at 2 AM in the morning, just to wake up after few hours, it was not a nightly sleep but a siesta. Freshened up, packed up, picked up and ran (indeed made the car to run :) to the common meeting point. Everyone gathered to start to our exciting camping destination which was about 5-6 hours away on an overly crowded brightly lit super sunny day. We all by now knew each other pretty well, however there were few who we met for the first time, though it did not feel like our first meet :) Some thing common in everyone of us connected us instantly…
As we were a big group of 16, we 5 girls and rest all guys... After meeting at this location we all gals gel’d so well that, we all wanted to join together and travel in one single car! But dropped the idea and let the guys to take the lead and we girls enjoy the ride! So 5 cars started in line one after another waving and smiling at each other… to meet after an hour at our designated meeting point to take a quick break and for one surprise which was secretly(??!!) planned.
I guess we were the last car to reach that meeting point at one of raider’s museum, or in plain words a cowboy museum! I saw all our guys and gals standing in a line from a distance and thought that they are waiting to enter the museum, only after reaching there we learned that they were waiting for the lone restroom available in that place :D, one after another done using the restroom and entered the museum to return the keys and to take a look at it. We found lots of cow boy hats, medals, pictures of raiders. The curator of the museum was delighted to see such a big crowd, of which half was outside the museum! She welcomed us to explore the museum and shared the details with each of us. We waved her good bye and came out to find bunch of chits to be picked up by every one of us, except for the drivers' of the car. Yes we were shuffling ourselves into different cars! That was one great thing we did to break the ice and which allowed us to know each other better. It was indeed exciting to pick the chit and find our driver! It was lot more fun than anticipated, we picked around 3 times to get the right car J and everyone boarded the car and headed to the next stop which was Yosemite national park’s visitor center!
Yosemite national park, a wilderness filled with tall pine or sequoia trees, wild animals [which kept few of us wide awake in the night :P] deep valleys, high granite mountains and full of melting snow resulting into gushing water falls at every half mile. The end of a spring and blossoming summer made our drive a pleasant one. Half dome, bridal veil and cascade water falls were just a feast to the eyes and to the heart. I wonder how the vastness and beauty of the nature make us feel so humble in front of it; fill the heart with such a warm feeling, which I can not express in words. Though our car was limping at many places due the over crowded traffic [This being the first long weekend of the summer, I guess whole of US was on the road!] the serene beauty of the nature and the melodious songs playing in the car enthralled every one of us and took us to a different world.
At last we reached the Yosemite’s visitor center to find no parking available, parked for long time in a NO parking zone with hazard lights on! Tried reaching others but signal was not available. We finished our lunch by taking turn to baby sit the car in the no parking zone. Some how we were able to sync up with others and decided to meet them all once for all at camp ground and then started towards Tioga pass, which had just opened 2 days back!
Tioga pass, which means “where it forks” I guess it connects the west valley to the east. According to NG magazine, this is one of the most scenic routes in Sierra. But, just after the lunch we started driving and what did I do :) took a nap…in between I was woken up and asked to look at the beauty of nature, I guess I saw but did not realize its beauty until I returned on the same route… the mountains and those milky frozen lakes were just breath taking...
[PS: This is just half of our first day events, tried hard to make it short :) but still ended up this long! will come up with remaining part , hopefully soon...]
Saturday, April 11, 2009
My friend...
For almost more than a week it was burning hot, temperature had raised all of sudden or may be I just moved in to a new apartment and stayed home for couple of days and felt the heat of spring and start of summer. However today when I woke up and came out to see the morning Sun and those baby pink colored flowers in the patio, instead rain drops and petals spread all over the patio pleasantly welcomed me! I wide opened the blinders to feel the cloud, misty tree and rain dripping flowers, of course with a cuppa tea and heater on! This weather forced me to send a WFH for first half of the day and sat at home nicely enjoying the rain and replying to the mails… [Had a long long day at work after that, that is a different story :D, kuch pane ke liye kuch khona bhi padta hai :(]
Later after noon came to work and religiously went and took a cuppa coffee to kick start my work! Ooops! What happened? Looks like got a right amount of coffee, sugar and cream and a perfect coffee and fresh aroma! Outside of the Windows [not 2K3 or 2K8, the real one!] I see airport, flights landing and taking off, scattered cars on the road… some how this weather and aroma of coffee took me to the flash back! This kinda coffee I was not used to, the amount of darkness in the coffee I used drink was too light, now over a period of time it has grown and this weather and coffee reminds me of those days when I just had started drinking, of course coffee! :) I had just joined my first job in US! And had a great friend at work who was my colleague, well-wisher and a guide, with who I started drinking this coffee at office! I remember those walks I used to take with him everyday, I remember those fears I used to share with him, and I remember his jokes which tried hard to make me laugh! And I remember those wishes he showered on me…. And I used to call him Chachu…and used pestered him to stick my picture (:P) along with his kids pics on his office wall!!... and when ever I called him “Chachu” he used to pretend angry … saying “main itna bhudda nahi hoon ki tum muje chachu kahe!” :) but you see I never gave up on it… and he is still my favorite Chachu and I cherish those memories for my life long… I’m indebted to those countless things he did it to me unconditionally, who stood beside me for anything and everything… Chachu I miss you and miss our walks and talks….I hope our paths cross again and we work together.
Later after noon came to work and religiously went and took a cuppa coffee to kick start my work! Ooops! What happened? Looks like got a right amount of coffee, sugar and cream and a perfect coffee and fresh aroma! Outside of the Windows [not 2K3 or 2K8, the real one!] I see airport, flights landing and taking off, scattered cars on the road… some how this weather and aroma of coffee took me to the flash back! This kinda coffee I was not used to, the amount of darkness in the coffee I used drink was too light, now over a period of time it has grown and this weather and coffee reminds me of those days when I just had started drinking, of course coffee! :) I had just joined my first job in US! And had a great friend at work who was my colleague, well-wisher and a guide, with who I started drinking this coffee at office! I remember those walks I used to take with him everyday, I remember those fears I used to share with him, and I remember his jokes which tried hard to make me laugh! And I remember those wishes he showered on me…. And I used to call him Chachu…and used pestered him to stick my picture (:P) along with his kids pics on his office wall!!... and when ever I called him “Chachu” he used to pretend angry … saying “main itna bhudda nahi hoon ki tum muje chachu kahe!” :) but you see I never gave up on it… and he is still my favorite Chachu and I cherish those memories for my life long… I’m indebted to those countless things he did it to me unconditionally, who stood beside me for anything and everything… Chachu I miss you and miss our walks and talks….I hope our paths cross again and we work together.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
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