2020

 This year was anything like other years in my living memory. Having born in 80s I have stood witness to many natural calamities such as Tsunami in 2004. But his pandemic beats them all. In 2009 swine flu made us bit scared but the consequences of that was not to this magnitude. Pandemic was a word learned in history books for me but we are living it now. 

Every person on this world has been affected in one way or the other. Millions lost their lives, their jobs. Many Healthline workers I know have lost their lives. Economies crushed.100s of my ex-colleagues at Emirates Airline lost their job. Travelling has become a distant dream now. We don’t know what can change when.

Also, in this year I lost a close one. It was a long-time illness culminating in death.

On another note, personally this year was ok for me. I am blessed to live in a part of the world where Corona Virus hasn’t been affected in a very bad way. I have a job which allows me to work from home all thru this. Saved some money through not travelling and not eating out on a whim and not doing impulsive buying. I had to home school my son for about 2 weeks which was not mandatory again, I could still send him to school if I wished during those 2 weeks. I got to celebrate Christmas with family and close ones.

But for many around the world the life in 2020 was not like me. And I feel for them and pray and hope that 2021 will bring good vibes to all of us.

Here it is to a New Year filled with prosperity and joy, Happy New Year everyone. Let’s hope for better times in New year

February 2019

I am not sure if I mentioned in my last post that I have decided to post every month of this year. Trying to pen down something is not always easy. For this month , I thought I will write more about
my life in general.

Amma and Ullas left to India on 1st of Feb. It is definitely more lonely after they left. But with Gab being around I feel that I can manage my loneliness.It is a blessing that I have work from home arrangements.Weekly twice I work from home so that I can pick Gab up from school. Other days he goes to 'Out of school care' after  his class. I will manage to pick him up by 5.15 PM usually.

Generally I feel more lonely. It is the same way I felt when I was expecting Gabriel back in 2011. I eagerly waited to go back to India to be with my mom then.I was living in Dubai. From May 2011 to November 2011 , I counted days impatiently. Even though I don't feel with that much of intensity I still feel somewhat same now. Eager to be somewhere else but not yet known where exactly.

It was double joy to be home for Christmas that year. Christmas 2011. I thought Gab will pop out for Christmas . He dint. Then I fervently hoped he would pop out for New Year's.But no. At last he came out on January 3rd 2012. He celebrated his 7th birthday last month.

In the year 2011 I celebrated Christmas at my home in Angamaly after 4 years. I think I have mentioned zillion times about how I always miss home in Angamaly during Christmas. After 2011 it was 2015 when I was home for Christmas. 4 years passed since then . Hoping to celebrate in this year.

I have plans of going to US  this year. Not sure how that will turn out. Keep on talking to the girls from my year 10 on whatsapp. Its been 21 years since I finished year 10. Back in 1998.

Talking to the girls reminded me of the movie 'Ayal Katha Ezuthukayaanu'. And the song 'Etho Nidra than'  from that movie  reminds me of Akka my mom's sister and Sangeetha her daughter . It was 3 of us who went to watch the movie when it released in Aluva . The ever movie enthusiast family.

Anyways signing off now... Next post in another month

Stay blessed..

Deepa- Light

My name Deepa means light in many Indian languages.  To say the least, light always inspired me. Candle lights, Christmas lights, Decoration lights be it anything at times you can find me lost in many places staring at the lights. It gives me immense joy by just looking at these.

When I was growing up back in Kerala (India) during my study time I used to stare at a lamp on top of a chapel which was a bit far. But right now many other building came on the way and one cannot see it. Even we moved from that house to another one. Those times our house was facing rice paddies. I used to stare endlessly at various light spots in the paddy with a textbook in my hand. It kind of filled my mind with pure bliss. Christmas lights around the world fascinated me. I picked some of my destinations to travel just because they are well lit during Christmas.

Thinking of my childhood made me think about another thing which is that I always got judged because sometimes I dint fit in with the norms.  When I was a young adult I learned to tweak myself to fit into the crowd more. But some things remain the same how much ever you try to please others and fall in the normalcy of things

The comments on me usually used to go like this… Oh look at her ‘She is so headstrong!!’, ‘She is so talkative’, and ‘She must be a flirt and a bitch! ’ ..   What I find amusing is that when they find out that I am different from what they thought then they get offended… Come on… You can feel stupid if your judgement was wrong but don’t feel offended…ever!

Years passed by. Marriage. Child. Three relocations in different continents. Made countless friends. Lost many of them... Some rifts… Some mending... Life goes on. But till today I find people who are too quick to judge. It’s the strangers masquerade behind the mask called ‘friends’.

Ona another note I decided to post once a month this whole year. 2019 Blogging year…

2018

What is the best way to call the year that just went by? Travel year? Soccer year?

As usual I had to write a year wind up post. 2018 was special in many ways.

My home state Kerala, back in India was flooded in August and it was the biggest flood in this century.

I cannot imagine the water levels rising up to such levels that many of our friends and family needed to be evacuated. Some of the relatives took refuge in my home. This natural disaster is forever etched in Kerala’s history.

Xmas time is always a festive time, followed by New Year, followed by Gaby’s birthday, followed by my birthday. Every year as a kid when I felt bad when Xmas was over, suddenly thinking of New Year and my birthday cheered me up and it continued to feel the same way till today.

I was blessed to travel to 3 more countries this year. Belgium, Netherlands and Czech Republic. Prague was the most beautiful city I ever visited. Gothic old charm.

Fell in love with Charles Bridge even before visiting it. It’s truly a magical city. Met up Henry in Prague after so many years. And caught up with Praveen and Ananya in Amsterdam.

2018 also witnessed another FIFA world cup.  It was sad that Argentina and Brazil getting out in Round of 16. Messi and CR7. Would they play in 2022 world cup?  . They will be too old to participate by then? We will have to wait and see

A long lost classmate contacted me almost after 12 years. There was lots to catch up with her.

Remembering the lost ones in heaven during this festive time. The friends and relatives who left us for heavenly abode in this year , remembering all. 

Whoever is reading this post Have a Merry Xmas and A Happy New Year 

Scrambles 2017

Trust me I promised myself to write more last year. But I never get any topic to start off with. Well If you think about it now I don't have any  particular topic in hand. However I thought I will scribble something regardless.
In the blink of an eye 2017 went off. Why do we feel always that time is just flying so fast ? According to Quran the feeling is one of the signs of that end of the world is nearing. I mean the feeling that time is going way too fast. 
My new year's eve 2018 was in Dubai. I was with Mrudula, Vineetha and Ursula for new year's. For Christmas I went to Ursula's farm in Wuddina. For the very first time I celebrated a Christmas in Australian way.Went to Bangalore after almost 4 years. Met Jess after a long time. Well she started smoking.Came to know from Kiran that Sanjay is divorced.I fought with my mother rigorously ,called her names too. But regret every bit of that fight now. Its always a love-hate relationship with her.
Went pubbing with Kiran,Jess,Dani,Ursula and Robin(Kiran's friend). Ursula visited India for the very first time.
Did shopping in Comm street& Brigades like old times. Visited Garuda mall. Had a catch up with Julie after ages. Ate Empire fried rice and kebab. 
Visited Europe for the very first time in 2017.Became a home owner in 2017. 
Gab started his year 1 on 29th Jan 2018 in Reynella Primary School. Going to move to the new home this weekend. Need to do furniture shopping. I put on weight. Unexpectedly met Jacob in Dubai who lives in Germany. Met a junior girl in college in Dubai who lives in India

Surprises are frequent but life goes on... and on!!!!

Till today unsure how I cleared the entrance exam for MCA(Master of Computer Applications) which all the students had to clear to secure an admission to the most prestigious College/University in South India - Christ College.
I vaguely remember my bachelors' degree classmates Aditya ,Gaurav and Balu talking among themselves:
 'lets just go give it a try, what if we clear the exam?. And also its chance to check the beautiful girls in the campus '. Christ college is renowned for Good looking girls.. hahah and especially NRIs(Non resident Indian) students.
Jancy the ever studious one, preparing for the exam like 3 months in advance. As I remember  it was 4 of us who wrote  the exam .Jancy genuinely wanted to secure an admission for MCA and prepared well for the exam.As for me , my big brother(who is like a father figure to me ) had given me the ultimatum to give it a try .My preparations was close to nil. Surely I cant speak for the other 3 boys whether they prepared or not.
I was not tensed at all cuz I was 100% sure that I wont clear the test, then why to take tension ? We popped into Gaurav's car and drove to the venue laughing and making fun etc as if we are going for a party. It seemed fun.
During the test somehow I felt that questions were kinda easy and simple and I am answering it right. It was all aptitude questions. But again I thought I am wrong its a just a stupid feeling that all questions seems simple. I completed the exam totally calm and cool. 
They said the results will be announced later and we were asked to check on their website on a particular day .On the day of results  I went to a cybercafe to check the results. Those times one of the pass time activities was chatting in online like yahoo chatrooms. I started chatting , forgot to check the results in time. (Reminds me of ASL please?  hahahah .. ASL stands for Age, Sex and Location)
After sometime when I checked my result in the website it said :
 'Congratulations. You have been shortlisted for an interview' .
I got a major shock and I could not stop staring at the screen. I thought it might be wrong . May be I have keyed in the wrong number to fetch the results. I immediately closed all chat windows , all browsers and breathed properly. Carefully opened the website and keyed in the number again.
It definitely said :
'Congratulations. You have been shortlisted for an interview' .
Well it is true. I have been shortlisted. But how? I couldn't believe it.
I immediately went out and called Jancy to check if she has cleared the exam. From her voice I could easily understand that she did not . Neither the boys . It was just ME!
I cleared the interview subsequently  (another miracle!) . I remember the interview panel asking me what is my favourite subject and I said its 'Computer Networks' (just because I wrote an exam on Computer Networks before the interview so that if any questions asked on it I would remember something and not look stupid .Computer Networks my fav subject??? Gimme a break!!! ) Another question followed. How many sacraments are there? I couldn't remember any sacraments in Computer Networks.. It was the Christian sacraments :) Well the name of the college is Christ for a reason! Amen! 
 (My interview could be another post by itself)
I must admit that that was a turnover in my life. A big turn! Christ college made me a programmer, an analyst , a better human being etc.I grew up from being not able to understand the difference between source code and object code to actually start programming. I fell in love with Java irrecoverably during 4th semester of my MCA
I recall Sunil used to call me 'Java Jose' because I read Java books in other boring lectures.
Java has been feeding me for past 11 years. As a tribute I buy only Android phones. And that somehow makes me anti-iPhone and anti-Apple. I take extreme pride in that.

P.S : This post is no way demeaning any of my friends who wrote the exam with me .

Jancy got admitted to another college and currently working as a QA Analyst in Illinois,USA after working with UPS for a number of years in New Jersey/New York.

Aditya is the State head of an Insurance Company in Bangalore,India

Gaurav is a business tycoon having a global impact. I am not sure where he is based.. hahaha

Balu is into Software field and working with a MNC and in Bangalore,India

Each person had their own destiny and this was mine!! 

To be continued...




 

ARGHH!!!

It is that time of  the month where you get pissed off for no apparent reason. I am angry because elevator took sometime to come... I got freaking angry because he dint smile at me... Well who he? I am a  random colleague for him. I am in the verge of smiling at him when I saw him and he dint smile back...
I am more angry because I promised myself that I will write more this year and there is a gap of 7 months between my posts this year...

And I am in no mood to smile or talk to anyone today apart from strictly professional matters....

Happy Snaping!!(To me)


(Post helped to release the heat from the system!!!)

Hello 2016

Are you a New year resolution person? if then What is your resolution for the year 2016 ? I know I am late in asking but its better to be late that never .

Since we are already into one month of New year, I may check on everyone.

Mine is the usual blah blah  resolutions- loose some weight, less anger, controlled emotions etc.

My last trip home was a bit long than usual , almost  a month. I gained weight in the process of all eating with nil exercise for a month .Was retreated to absolute laziness with family around. Not moving a finger for anything.Eating, eating and oh yeah eating. I had attended almost 11 functions in the extended clan of mine. That reminded me of my niece's wedding. Ouch! When she gives birth  I will be officially a grand mom .arghh!! and oh yeah I am waiting !

I am on with my Australian life and still comparing and contemplating on that. Key things to note on my current feelings

1. I have not made many friends here. The ones I have are the ones I am friends with even before moving to Adelaide

2. My son's first day at pre-school will be on Feb 1st this year.

3. I have a cheating feeling from somebody whom I consider close. But I harbour no pain or no regrets. I dint reply to that person's messages though. Will take time to hit that reply button.

4. The year 2015 whizzed off just like that. I remember contemplating with a friend of mine in 2014 January about how if the year shifted swiftly to 2018 then I could do something. 2 years gone by since then.

5. I always  check on what's happening in Dubai.

6. Malibu and pineapple crush is a good combo(suggested by girlfriends)

7. Somebody at work looks at me but no smile. And I do the same . Its a bit weird if you don't smile , least with a colleague in this part of the world. So to avoid the awkwardness I avoid going to the pantry at the same time.

8. Somebody is very tall and got cat eyes. Sigh!! I smile and retreat to myself at the sight of that person. hahahah!! EVIL LAUGH!!

9. A friend pinged from London after a year and it felt good to have a funny conversation but again the friend is absconding ever since that chat. hahahah

10. Makes me sad that Dipti is leaving Dubai.

11. Feel bad when I see  Emirates flight landing or taking off from Adelaide.

    

12. Some things are not yet settled and its gonna be that way at least for a while

And I am gonna write more this year.. :)  Stay tuned.. God Bless!

 

Ho Ho Ho!

Yes, its that time of the year where almost everyone I meet is in festive spirits wherein me myself is in the heights of that. Time to rewind back and check if the year has been good to you. Or rather if everyone is been good to you or vice versa  or even better if you have been good to yourself.. :)
Christmas is finally here. :) Decorations   and  Christmas songs everywhere. I personally check on my friends around the world to find out what they  have been up to. Oh yes whomever I got in touch with have been good. Thanks for that...

2015 was good to me. My first job in Australia and all  .. been good so far..

When i think about the old times of celebrating Christmas the plum cake comes to mind which my mom's  mom gifts us every year. After celebrating it in our own home we usually  head to Grandam's place the next day. She would have bought  a plum cake from the near by bakery for us.I have been to so many countries and have tried their best cakes but sadly nothing matches up to the taste of that cake. This year when I ate Panatone i thought it would  be somewhat same as  what I felt while  eating her cake , but in vain.I tried in the local German bakery too. Next time I visit her place(sans my Grandmom as she is no more) I should try and find out if that bakery is still running.

In my Grandmom's place the Christmas star would be placed in a mango tree which used to be in our courtyard . As far as I can remember the star was always red in color or gold.The inner peace I used to get while staring at the star while spending time with my cousins there.. aah  What a Bliss!!!

That reminds me of my cousins... Our cousin gang  consisting of mostly males and  2 of us girls. I still remember how my elder brother used to fool us 2 girls in the early days of playing cricket. Like when I was may be 7 years old and my cousin sis was like 10. While playing cricket I would most certainly be the opening batsman and my cousin sister  the second. With no surprise to us we would mostly be clean bowled in first ball or the second. That was the tactics employed  by the captain so that then both of us girls would field religiously after getting out in the proper way and be honored to be in the opening line.  We didn't question our captain until we grew up to be clever enough to understand his captaincy tricks.Sometimes I attribute that male nature in me is because I grew up with these morons... ahhaha

These cousins of mine.. accompanying them everywhere.. climbing trees.. jumping into ponds.. Playing war.. Playing cards.. Assuming our dog as a horse and riding on him..(the dog almost bit me once).

My primary and high school was a girls only school . That dint help me subside this excited nature in me why because I was  my friends'  protector and taking care  of them from  eve-teasers  from the near by boys' only school and replying back to these guys in the same coin. 

Almost the same atmosphere while doing my graduation.4 girls and  36 guys in my class.Coming to think of it , i was never a girly girl.. If at all I decided to be slient like  a girly girl would normally be , it would be treatd as  sheer arrogance by my friends and  not as the silence which a pretty damsel usually  have. I tried it quite a few times but failed miserably. hahahaha

Off late its almost the same when I go clubbing with my girls and  I cant drink cuz I need to drive them back or I need to have a watchful eye around so that no problems occur to us whatsoever. Not that I am complaining of it, but at times I do think if someone was there to take care of me so that I could care less .

Ouch!! the topic has drifted apart from the original topic  as I intended it to be.
 
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.. Stay Blessed!
See you all in Next Year!

Sorry

If I could ever track that person again, All I would tell him is “I am sorry”. I am sorry for being rude. I am sorry for being judgmental. I am sorry from the bottom of my heart.

This happened when I was living in Bangalore. My mom had sent me a courier from Kerala. I was impatiently waiting for this courier as it was something important. That time I was going through a down phase in my life. Snapping at everything and everyone was kinda helping me to free myself from the stress.

Back to the incident, he had phoned me to ask for guidance to locate my apartment and I snapped at him and said he can find that on the envelope. After say 20 minutes he dint arrive so I called him .With a humble tone he said, ‘Ma’am, I am drinking water from a shop and I will arrive shortly.” I was like what the hell! He is gone to drink water when his at most priority was to deliver me the stuff. I grew impatient. I raised my voice at him saying to come fast as I am waiting down my apartment and its hot summer Blah! Blah.I gave him a piece of my mind..

After sometime I saw a very old person in his modest bike wandering and searching for a location. It occurred to me with a sense of guilt that he might be the courier person and I stopped him. He was indeed the courier guy. I was expecting  the delivery guy maximum to be in his 40s .I never ever expected him to be so old may be older than my father. He was weak. He was thin. He had all the right reasons to drink water in that hot summer. After all, at that age he was still working to earn a livelihood. I felt as a smallest thing on earth when he told me the street no in the address is wrong on the envelope and he was searching for me in the adjacent street, that’s why he could not locate me earlier.He was right. My mom had written wrong street no in the address.  With that note he drove off  after giving me my stuff and I just looked at him without saying anything.

I am sorry for that rude behavior!!

The Globe

I had to write this post here so that even if it gets erased from my memory when I check this space it gets refreshed .  And that's the exact reason of our blogging. Going with the tag line of IndiBlogger  I must say  that We blog, Therefore we are :) 
Yesterday I took my  son who  is 3.6 years old for enrolling into pre-school. The time to enroll was  from  6.30 PM to 7.30 PM. Considering its winter and the sun sets at 5.25 PM it was pretty much dark  out there and if you know the Australian street lighting it is not very great . I drove to the school watching Mars and Venus near to the Moon in the sky .
Yes it is some  kinda advantage of living in the Southern Hemisphere.You get to witness an amazing sky in the night.I am a stargazer. I mean I wanted to be one at least.
As soon as we entered, the person did welcome us with warm greetings. While marking our attendance  she casually asked if we are of  Italian ancestry seeing my son's Surname. (I can be pretty sure it is only by the Surname and not with our looks nor because of our skin color..LOL).
The first thing  my son noted  that there was a  desk globe. He walked me towards it and rotated it and pointed at Australia.. DUH! Not India nor Dubai. It had to be Australia. Well I am OK! I am merely saying what happened yesterday.
Then he started playing with trains and cars. Well almost all the children were playing there. It was well equipped with so many toys and learning materials.I enrolled him and I was told the classes will only start in January next year

While driving back home I asked him whether he liked his pre-school

"Yes, I liked the globe and the cars. Not the school"   He answered..

Ramadan

Its always been the case with me or rather with everyone that is when we are away from something we tend to value it a lot.

June 18th marked the beginning of Ramadan 2015. Am I fasting ? No. Am I in Dubai? No.But still everyday morning at work  I check gulfnews.com quite religiously  to keep a check on whats happening in and around Dubai during Ramadan.

Last year I persuaded my colleagues to go for Iftar and we all went for it .The reason being that  I knew it would remain as 'The Iftar' and I wanted to cherish it for sometime till I get another chance to have Iftar in Dubai 

I landed in Dubai in Oct 2008 and I remember it was Eid-Al-Adha sometime in Dec 2008. I was greeted by the lady next door and that was when I realized it was a festival that day.
Following year I learned how religiously people follow Ramadan in Dubai. I learned about it more when I started working for Emirates Airline in 2010 Aug .

If prompting someone to break their fast is a sin then I have sinned :). We 3 at work got into his(the one who broke his fast) car ,drove to Deira City Center , got Burgers from Burger King ,came back to the parking lot and ate a lot sitting in his car. I still remember his agonized face because during Iftar the same day he had to act all hungry and thirsty  while breaking the fast around his family. Yeah I take all the blame ...:)
 
Moving out of Dubai has definitely created  a vacuum somewhere in me. Seeing my Facebook friends' post about this year's Ramadan makes me wanna jump into that vacuum and sulk sitting there all the day. But I need to move on and thrive in this emotional unbalance for my own betterment.

Take Care!

Chronicles

I am not going to mention when this happened. But it happened during my college times.

All in my class were excited to host the welcome party for the juniors. Minor raging and friendly talks were allowed with juniors and me and a girl friend of mine took the sinful pleasure of terrifying them (It’s a sad fact that we were terrified when confronted the juniors) with occasional bullying and intense staring.

The much awaited Fresher’s Welcome party arrived. For time pass we were hunting for good looking chaps among juniors you know just in case :) . And my eyes were struck on this tall cute guy. He was seated write opposite to me. To my amusement he was also grinning at me. Both of us were enjoying the reciprocation we were getting in the same level from him.  The grinning and eye contact went on till the formal addressing finished. During the dinner time, he walked up to us and introduced himself. Our excitement grew further when he striked a conversation and asked me

“Are you the one who is dating my friend, Mr. “X”.

I said “Yes”

He: “I was his junior in school and I knew about you. Hence wanted to talk to you”.

My grin disappeared instantly and I vanished into thin air almost at the same moment.

During the entire juniors program I forgot I was dating Mr. X and my junior reminded me in a way that I wrote this post about the whole incident after a decade…

Stay cool.. :)