Thursday, September 23, 2010

I am Scared of hmm...


If you ask me this question ever – “Are you scared of anything?”, you will get a confused look. It is not because I have the confusion on ‘What to convey?’ but on ‘What ALL to convey?’.I am scared of almost all the things I see around. I try to put up that Ms Serious looks everywhere. But those incidents that reveal the ‘Real Me’ just pops up everything. Many make fun of the way I behave and there are some who try to scare me more. My better half thinks that most of them are my illusion and I never make any sincere effort to get out of it. I do not blame him for this :-( .

Just rolling back to few of the incidents. I have a huge – huge scare for heights. May it be a small hill or the corner of a tall building or even a big mountain that is XXXXXX ft height, it is all the same. One look down, my vision blacks out. The time my husband and I visited The Grand Canyon - one of the most famous and beautiful tourist spots in the world, rather putting efforts to pose for the best snap, I was worried about a random wind or some thrust that would pull me down the valley!! When we go for trekking, to hop from one rock to another – irrespective of the size of the rock, I start stretching hands for help.

Thunder Storms and Lightening, another piece that freaks me out totally. I love the rain, but can’t fight the thunder bolts. At my place when it storms and there is heavy rain with thunder – two people seize the best possible shelters, Myself – on the bed with two pillows covering my ears hard so that it leaves no chance for the least possible noise. The second candidate was Julie – our doggie. She was equally scared, and used to hide below a couch or bed. The chill of fear is still there when I hear the same symphony.

Insects, reptiles and all kind of “Not So Good looking” creatures. Sometime I feel that can handle the King of Jungle (Lion) in a better way than a cockroach or a spider. The most dangerous dream I can ever witness is a Snake. One of such dreams can upset me so hard that I lose sleep for rest of the night. Seeing programs in National Geographic or Discovery was a pain when these were described. Mostly options open are to run off from the TV or switch channels.

The most lunatic part of my Scare list was none other than Horror Movies. You have no idea how much interest I show to watch a ghost movie. I try to pep up the crowd to opt for horror movies. Whoever takes me for the movie, by the end of the movie used to make up their minds never to fall for my words again. For them the more scarier part was seeing me scream and panic than the movie clips. For major part of the movie, my head would be covered behind the pop corn basket or the seat cushion. After effects of the movie are – scared to sleep alone, seeing ghost like images for one’s own shadow, a restart of the fridge compressor giving the feel of an intruder inside the apartment.

The list goes on and on and on. Most of them are real stupid to even disclose. Being a scary piggy, I lose to do most of the exciting things. I am gonna put my sincere efforts to work on these phobias. If not a cure, atleast reduce its effect!...

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Not Another Monday!


I am scared to turn back and think about yesterday. Right from the start of the day, everything was going disastrous. It was not something new for me, hunting for a formals to wear. Since it is the ‘Fun Day’ Monday, and I usually try to fit into my best attire. Suddenly felt like my whole wardrobe was empty and everything was out for wash!...With greater efforts I could manage to find out some outfit. Clock was ticking so fast that it was almost striking 9:45 AM. Hopes of a peaceful breakfast was then out of question. I had to find a person to go with to office. I started dialing number after number to reach someone. Unusual and to my bad luck, most of the calls were getting directed to voice messages!!!. Whoever I could speak were either working from home or already reached office. At last I could reach one of my colleagues who was about to start to office. It felt to me that, I was so lucky to get hold of someone who could get me to office. The series of events that happened after that can explain to its best why I was dragged to office.

After I reached the office, I could find that I have scooted one meeting which I was supposed to attend. It was not a deliberate act, but sheer poor memory. My whole outlook showed up a big screen of unread emails, most of which were flagged. There were notes to me with so called “Friendly Reminder”, which alarmed me that ‘One more time you fail to respond – It is an escalation’. Before I could settled down, I got requests to create some random documents in a span of some 30mts. Rather than the marathon effort, I had very less idea of what has to be documented. It was now time to get into a review meeting. I got bombarded with so many comments and questions on the technology part (different from what I am working on). More than getting confused and being ignorant on what has to be conveyed, I was getting annoyed as I was digging into things which took me nowhere. There were a bunch of people who had questions and question for me..and poor me left with no options to cook up explanations. I swear I don’t remember a work what I spoke then. When we were almost at the end of the discussion and there comes the next comet. My laptop is stuck and all that has been updated to the document is gone. The team would have freaked out hearing my stupid reason. I had no other way but to reschedule the meeting and grab my colleague’s laptop to work on. Almost by the time I was done with the updates, I see my laptop back up!.. The very sight of the machine urged me to break it into pieces. Then it came to my mind that I even missed my appointment with the eye specialist that day for the contact lenses. I left the idea of calling up the clinic as it was way too late to think about it.

By this time I could find everyone disperse for lunch. I too decided to grab some food as my stomach was all growling. Hunger was as it its peak and I really wanted to eat something good. Picked up some Mexican cuisine – which I customized adding all kinds of toppings and dressings. Eating the whole thing was un-imaginable and I almost threw the whole food. After the pathetic attempt lunching I forced myself back to work. Struggled the rest of the day to complete atleast a portion of my To-Do list, which did not happen. My MOC (MS Office communicator), being the most used application in my laptop at that time – showed me some 30 open conversations. Either it is a random person asking for a doubt, or a project team waiting for updates. Worst is when you find people who have not showed up for a long while, or cared to acknowledge start pinging you, checking for your well-being.

I could find that, my regular pass-times, Face book webpage was not even open, and I see my iPod lie at the corner of my desk unnoticed. When it was almost 6 in the eve, I decided to wrap and get home. The whole evening I spend working, trying to respond to all the emails. It felt like I am just back to work after a long vacation. Having lost all my serene approach to work, it really reminded all the stupid homework teachers used to give during school time. I had no one to blame on or anything specific to crib about. After all the slogging, I managed to sleep. Un-believable that even my sleep granted me another crappy Monday. Disturbed from sleep when I woke up, I could see the day light and it was already morning – I wished not a Monday again!!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

ToP GuN


















My mother used to find great pleasure in collecting and arranging the whole house with all different showpieces. May it be a flower pot or an antique piece, the efforts spend by her right from buying and maintaining it are exceptional. Others @ home - my father, sister, myself and our doggie these were defined taboo. One touch a look is enough to annoy my mother.

This is something that has happened long back when Rinku (my sister) and I were young. My mom bought a Chandelier and it was stuck at the roof of our living room. With the lighting, the chandelier looked fabulous. It gave the room an elegant look. Every person who stepped into our house took time to talk about it and appreciate Mom for getting it.

It was some time during our Summer vacation. Me and my sister had couple of friends who live near our house. We used to enjoy playing indoor games. This time it was Dumb Charades aka 'Dumc'. In this game, you will be given a movie name and will be asked to enact the same just with actions to your team members and make them recognize the movie name. You will not be allowed to speak while you mock the movie. The span you get for a movie is 1 minute. There was four of us that day @ my house (living room), two in each team. Me and my sister we were in the same team.

Played couple of rounds and the game going very tight on who will win. It was my sister's chance to act the movie to me. She got the movie 'Top Gun'. She was successful in making me say the word "Gun". We were still trying for the word "Top". She made all kind of jestures pointing and raising herself up. I was trying hard, with words - "above", "up", "high", "beyond" and all possible words but for "Top". We were running out of time and my sister got really irritated. She kept on pointing her hand up, but i was not able to guess what she was trying to explain. Annoyed to the core, she shouted "Top Gun" and stretched her hand hard pointing up. All that what we could hear for next few moments was the sound of broken glass pieces. We could see 2 of the leaves from the pretty fitting lie all broken down. Marking it as an end of the game, my friends left for their home. My heart was almost popping outta my mouth. It was similar to crime scene in movies, where the murderer panic with the corpse. Mom was not at home then, and we had to clean the mess by the time she was back. We threw the glass pieces and cleaned the room. The next was to cover up what has happened. The master minds started working on cooking up stories. Looking into the figuring, it was very difficult to find out that it has lost some shape. The chandelier had such a complicated design and you will really not get to know that it is disfigured. We had no choice but to take a chance. Our intuitions helped as no one did notice it anytime.

When ever my sister had something to fight on me, and ever there is a win-lose situation, my wicked mind used to pick up this incident. I used to gawk at the chandelier saying "Top Gun". It used to chill my sister as we knew what would happen any time it is disclosed. I used to blackmail her with the same for a long time and gradually we forgot. This time I get back home, I am sure to check the chandelier how it is :-). Hope my mother not to read this!! It can still ignite an explosion. Shhhhhhh!!!