Bangladesh....part 1- the good part

Consulting is a strange profession - you crib about doing things- and when those things are over you like them...the last couple of projects have been different - i enjoyed doing them as well, and the last of these took me to Dhaka in Bangladesh - so it was good work plus some travel that I so wanted to do ( the other bit being Pakistan where I really want to go - to know the other people)


Well, Dhaka !! just an extension of Calcutta... is the first thing that hits you the moment u get out of the airport - same graffiti on the wall, same people, just this that the cars are very different - no yellow ambassadors :) the car for the hotel pickup was a Toyota Land cruiser!!! in fact- Dhaka is full of Japanese cars - Toyota, Honda and Mitsubishi - all large saloons- too much for a poor country :) (almost all cars are refurbished as told to me later by locals, and its a matter of pride to have a large car - and that s why smaller refurbished car has not takers, new small cars have no takers, and well no other small cars have no takers) - the government is even worse than India- politics overwhelmingly omnipresent in everything, and yet Dhaka has managed to complete feats which we have always backtracked on - Dhaka is a no polythene city - YES - it is maintained as such - and for all the crap heard in Delhi against it remains such - veggies and all stuff is given out in paper bags or nice sweet thread bags...(Too much of democracy of pittance in India - we can not even impress this upon ourself) - the other really nice thing - Dhaka has all private vehicles running on CNG- all autos, cars et all....

Random mumblings

Almost five months after taking the wedding vows, I am a changed man!! or so says, Gopal jee....one of the nice people I know from the old world school of thinking.... (incidently, I am a misplaced concoction - lost between new world and old world ) - i don't really agree


What i do agree to is the fact that things have changed - my house, my job and my life - and so have some of the thoughts and beliefs I lived with all these years - am trying to put some of them into perspective, words don't do justice to the complexities of life though :)

• Marriage isn't demanding - but the way we are born and brought up in life requires us to be nice people to the others around, and others may include wife - and so you start restricting yourself, so that the lady who has moved in leaving her life behind does not face the brunt of your adventurisms -- in my case "Biwi" has been supportive and never said a thing , and YET I have drastically reduced the outings and parties - this is also partially because my office is now 40 km from my house, and half the time I am more happy beating the traffic at rush hour, than plan late evening jists with friends
• A wise friend once told me "don't change three things together - house/city , work and social circle" - in my case the all 3 have badly changed and it shows up - i am still lost like a zombie!

Well, am planning a 15 day vacation sometime in January - February, and just can't seem to finalize the place...help me if you could - initial thoughts - Sri Lanka-Maldives or Bangkok-Cambodia-Vietnam or the north east...any more suggestions - welcome

Reflections

well, here I am again at the blog, after may be the most happening 4 months of my life.....and here are the lessons I learnt while at living it....

1. Its always more fun at other's weddings....ur own is a "smile-till-your-cheek-hurts" affair, when u are made to pose in random ways with your "better half" on stage for the benefit of the photographer, who charges a bomb for clicking your snaps in god-forsaken stupid poses, and then takes forever to deliver the snaps to you - and you while away smiling to strangers while your good friends are giggling and laughing away to all those memories you are a part of....
2. Deciding a menu for your wedding ranks next to "building a red fort and staying in a shanty" experience- 'coz all those tikkas you planned to melt away in your mouth, are sovoured by the guests while you melt away to the glaring hot halogen lights of the videograoher:(
3. After being a staunch votary of love marriage, or atleast know thou beau for all these years, marrying a rank stranger is no difficult thing....in fact it has been "so far so good" approach....it takes away too many unknowns and risks away, and gets you to know one of the best people i have got to know- Snigdha:)
4. if you intend to get married in any time in near future, 
• try finding a job with industry where late stays are not the norm
• plan shifting to a house near your office so you spend least on travel
• find a job where you could work from home (option 3 for me)

I know this is random ramblings, but one thing you end up losing in marriage is "Focus" - with so many things around you changing, its difficult to sit back, channel your thoughts and actually sit and type for long...and so adieu this time around....

and i'll create a new world sans you

for the days i would be deep at sea,
venturing into uncharted waters,
the waves tossing me around
alone in the fog and chill
and when the skies thundered me with storms and lightening
u were there, dear lighthouse, to guide me home

for all those days when i had a huge catch
and the days i returned empty handed
u showered ur light on me
illuminated my way, embraced me in ur light
just to light me up-  away from darkness

when out at sea, i could see u from a distance
knew there was someone waiting for me back there
knew u ll burn urself away in the dark night
so that i could be safe, i could face the seas
i could survive the treacherous fogs

u gave me the courage to venture ahead
in life, go to the deeper seas,
stay out in the dark
and still find my way back fighting the odds
coz i knew u waited there for me
u were my pillar of strength, and the sense of direction in life

and,then today,
i m far from the shore in the deep seas, all alone in the fog and chill
the waves tossing me around
venturing into uncharted waters,

and the skies threatening me with storms and lightening

u seem to have befriended the clouds
they surround you, embrace u
taking ur faint light away from me
i have nowhere to go
i dont know my way back
coz the only direction i rowed to was u
i am lost and wandering
coz the only landmark my life had was u

may be u ll turn ur light off for me
may be the clouds wont let u spreading ur light again
may be i ll never embrace ur light

but i won't go down without a fight
i ll fight the waves tossing me around
i ll fight the skies and thunderstorms
and i ll keep rowing till i m dead or drowned
and may be i'll find a new shore to return to
and i ll be the discoverer
of the new lands
where the seas are calmer, and the clouds not so dark
where fogs go away when i reach the shore
the rocks not so trecherous, and the nights not so dark

dear lighthouse, i ll create a new world,
without you, and be the sea warrior again

The book of accounts of relationships

Somewhere in the last few days, there have been a lot of happenings around me, since i posted last.

And then - a new job, a new house, and some new friends and acquaintances. And a new start with all these. In the interactions with this new set of people, one question which kept coming back to me is simple enough- if we really appreciate a set of people- do we actually keep a tab of "what s/he did to me" and "why did s/he not do this"?
I always maintained a differetial set of people around - People I use ( and I call them acquaintances) and people I get used by and vice versa( and I call them my friends), and for me the distinction is very clear- with friends I do not get into accounting for credits and debits of good and bad deeds. Since these people have reached the criteria of being my friends, they are above all these. The special people in my life come into this set, and I never had and never would(hopefully) question their intentions.
For the other set- keep them in good humor, do what is necessary to keep the acquaintance going, and then that's it. May be there is an inherent account here, but not on actuals. So I would probably "return favours" once in a while.
I assume, most people around me would have a similar distiction for themselves- the boudaries may differ, but the concept does not.
However, What astonishes me is that there are people who actually keep tabs on the special people- more so for the special people. And , may be that is why according to a friend of mine "a lot of changes happen to the girl of your dreams once you get married, all things which were acceptable before shaadi, simply become bones of contention after that".

Not sure if this is the best way to correlate what is happening to this close couple's relationship. Best of friends for a long time, now they fight over everything. Fingers are pointed, cribs flying to and fro, and short tempers frowning.
I recall there was a law in nuclear physics that we studied in school- something to do with molecular attraction ( do not remeber the exact name though) which basically said " Two molecular particles like electron and photon get strongly attracted to each other, and start moving closer to each other, when at a certain close distance they start repelling each other" and there was some fancy formula for this equation, at which repulsion would occur. I wonder if a similar formula does not occur in real life.

On the sidelines- here's another propellent of the "old school of love" - Devi Kiran , read this and couldn't agree more!!!