~~ Letting go ~~

Its been a while since I wrote anything. Of course, I mean in this space. Lots of thoughts to pen down but somehow life has been a busy blur and to add to it, the realization that probably nobody reads these kind of stuff anymore and there wont be like minded people commenting anymore has dulled the enthusiasm to keep writing. Yet, here I am, after such a long hiatus, finally doing what I love, write my heart out.

So, what finally made me write again? Well, the blog itself, if I can say so. 

Having stepped into the last week of December 2021, all happy and feeling free as I had just completed 2 marathon nerve wracking written exam weekends of my master's exams (written, yes, there are still written exams) and after resting for 2 days, and with my daughter's school re-opening without a long Christmas vacation this time, I cancelled my planned leave and logged back in for work. As I write this, I am thankful I cancelled my leave and logged in that day - because, if I had not, I would have missed the email that one of my dear blogger friends, had sent across that the organization blog space was going to be retired by December 2021.  I felt numb, almost immediately. I couldn't believe it at first. But the realization slowly creeped in. A space which was so near and dear to me and has been for a very very long time and which was the only thing probably other than the location constraint that kept me bound to the organization, was going to be shut down, just like that. I had only a few more days left to salvage what I could. 

I remember looking at the email with utter disappointment and shock 😞😟😔😔  The next few days went in a blur of raising multiple tickets expressing disappointment and directions to get probable backups as I had never managed to sync that space with this space of mine. But it was not just about backups or the syncing, I just couldn't believe that the space that had a beautiful footprint of various moments of me writing my heart out, knowing there will be comments by various loyal like minded readers, various friendships made over these comments which are still going strong to this day was going to be just torn down.  

The space was renamed multiple times throughout my tenure, but the essence of it remained. It was this beautiful, wonderful space filled with positivity and inspiring people. It had always been that silent loyal friend, a reason for those numerous laughs from the funny comments, had been a sounding board for all my rants, the first space where my stories took shape and where I wrote my heart out as I knew I would never be judged, a space where I made so many friends. Numerous like minded souls connected over that space and I won't be wrong to say that if there is one thing that fellow bloggers felt bad when leaving the organization - it was leaving that blogspace. 

I was trying to read some of my old posts and comments at about 10:30pm on Dec 31st night(Yes, that's how my last day of year 2021 was spent), when suddenly the site stopped responding. I was not sure if the shutdown process had begun, but I couldn't bear it that I almost witnessed the site being taken down. I had this empty sad look on my face, my husband who had seen me, just minutes ago, smiling (at the post and the comments) asked me what went wrong when I suddenly went pale - I told him about the site being shut down, he obviously couldn't understand the pain I felt of letting that space go, and he just looked at me blankly not knowing what to say. Probably only a fellow blogger will understand the pain or may be I was just over reacting. I don't know. But it did pain me immensely.

Anyways, having gone through that, I realized that day how much I missed writing and that I need to use this space more. Comments or no comments, I knew, I should continue to write.. I have too many things on my plate right now, but I will make it a point to write here often this year!! 

Lets see how I go...

 

~~ And the prompts so far ~~

Originally written on April 17th 2019...
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Hey everyone…

As the weekly prompts completes 15 weeks as of last week – I thought, why not just put up a compilation of all the prompts that have been given out as part of weekly prompts this year from this space and let fellow bloggers help pick any they might have missed reading and thus writing  🙂 Most of these prompts are inspired by what I encounter in my day to day life or my own experiences in the week – so feel free to use your imagination to fictionalize it and present it as a chapter from a story or alternatively, and only if you are fine , write about your own experience around the prompt – totally your choice 🙂

Now, for the first time readers of this post,  the idea of starting this exercise of weekly prompts was to get people to dust their blog spaces and just write about any random topic.. anything that helps to give the wide audience of blogger community here in this space and their imaginations a kick start…  For starters, I was one such blogger who needed to dust my space too and this exercise sure did make me sit up and write quite a few number of posts this year, even if they were just giving out prompts (sometimes not on time :P)… So if you have been wanting to write from a long time and if you get a spark from any of the below mentioned prompts, I’d be very happy to have achieved that 🙂  If not, hey, there’s always the next prompt to look forward to 🙂 Not all prompts can interest everyone, right?

19.15

Imagine that you are leaving someone important behind and traveling half way across the world because of some commitment which cannot be avoided at any cost – Pen your thoughts during the travel

19.14:

Earth starts wobbling and you have no idea what’s going on. Amidst chaos, suddenly, you are made aware, that you are the only one, for some reason, who can figure out and rectify Earth’s rotation. Build a story around it.  As expected, this can be a funny take on the chaos and need not be driven by serious scientifically proven concepts.

19.13:

My daughter, all of 8 years, looked at me with her innocent eyes, brimming with tears, and asked me – Ma, when will I be 18  years old? Why is it taking so long? When can I free you from him? I don’t need him. Ma, please. Listen to me. Let’s leave.

19.12:

I woke up.. It seemed like a peaceful morning. .. I was not yet ready to get out of the bed.. I could hear the early morning noises, the birds chirping, the gurgling noises of the stream nearby, the temple bells ringing at a distance.. The aroma of filter coffee from the kitchen managed to further wake the lazy-me and I slowly turned to my left. That’s when I saw her, sleeping next to me, a sweet serene smile on her face… I smiled back mesmerized by the beauty, only to suddenly wake up completely and recoil in horror – who the hell was this sleeping beauty and what the hell was she doing here?

19.11, 19.10, 19.09 : These were not given by me but voluntarily given by Ramanujam when I went missing from this space 😛 Thank you again, Ramanujam 🙂 (Note: though I linked his prompts in Org space, not going to do so here as that requires me to ask him if he's ok with that and he has already left the organization)

19:08 :  Write a 55F  using the mother-daughter image as the theme. Refer the original post for the image

19.07:  Following must be the last lines of your story. “And there you are – my own happily ever after” Yep, happy endings please!

19.06:  I want you to write about anything that recently made you experience that kind of “peace” or “happiness”.  Basically, what makes you happy? Like, truly happy?  It can be as simple as feeling bliss as you sip hot filter coffee from that steel tumbler or as complicated as you want it to be. It can be a place, a safe memory, a comfort food, a conversation with a particular person, an activity, a hobby or multiple such things  put together.  If you are not comfortable elaborating on a single personal experience, you can also give us your own happiness – list, say, like 15 things (need not be exactly 15) that make you absolutely happy 🙂 Choice is yours 🙂

19.05: I want you to set a timer for 10 minutes and write.  Write every random thought that crosses your mind in those 10 minutes. Do not plan the post, no editing allowed (I cannot verify it, but I trust you :)) –  Just jot down the free flow of random thoughts and publish the post at the end of 10 minutes

19.04:  The prompt for you is to write a post/story using all of the following –

“The Hidden Sun”

“Afternoon on a hill”

“By the sea-side”

and if possible, a reference somewhere to the legendary story of “Rip Van Winkle” (Please google if you don’t know the story)

19:03:  The prompt for you this week is to write a story revolving around a family along the lines of – Theda hai but mera hai – as in “Crazy, Weird, Twisted but Mine”. Write about a family which is as weird, crazy, twisted, different as any other family, but at the end of the day, no one would want it away or any different. And oh, I will be super glad if you choose to write on your own one-of-a-kind family  (I am sure, each one of us has one such) instead of a fictionalized version. Go on, choose real or fiction and then write!!

19.02: Write about that kid that you were, with a different dream and a different passion and if you want, how you ended up here, good or bad? I know we can pursue dreams even with this job, and if that’s the case, write how you managed to do so. If it’s too personal, you can also fictionalize this prompt and weave a story around childhood dreams turning into passion or otherwise. You get to decide!

19.01: Considering this is the first post and the first prompt of the year  – I decided to have the most cliched topic at this time of the year , as a prompt,  yes, of course, the new year resolutions!! What are your this year’s resolutions? Go on, write about it and let’s then come back end of the year to check what we have accomplished from the list

Its been a while I actually “blogged” – If you get what I mean. Most of my recent posts are just centered around the weekly prompts – with a little background about how the prompt came into being.  And as I type this, I can’t help but sigh, and, yes, I have told this probably a hundred times already but I do miss the old humble and generous blogging community and of course, the comments that used to pour in as soon as we published a post – it was a positive community and at times the encouragement felt too much to handle too!  To be honest, I miss those rants and ramblings those few amazing bloggers used to write, and interestingly, as I look back, those were the ones that has made an impact than anything else, as I seem to still remember them 🙂 Probably because, they were super creative even if it were just rants/ramblings and it also helped the reader connect in a strange way – you just nod along the lines of the rants, that yep, been there, experienced that, you know?

I don’t know how many of you quite understand that blogging is not only about churning out fiction and stories all the time(of course it is for bloggers who create a blog with an intention, passion and interest to do only that), but it’s essentially at the end of the day, a weblog, a platform to write about anything under the sun, a platform each uses for a purpose of his/her own interests, some do it to hone their writing skills,  some do it make connections with people with similar interests, some do it because they are better at weaving words online than in person, some do it to ensure there’s a log of what interests them, some vent out stuff which they cannot anywhere else – why, there are blogs that churn out details about what happens next in the Ekta Kapoor daily soaps – so, a blog can document anything that you want it to depict – its about your personal interests and how you want your space to be when and if you decide writing 🙂   Having said that, every blogger thrives on comments, even if it is a critical feedback or a mere acknowledgement, a recognition that the post has been read does add colour to a bloggers life !

But hey, before I digress further, which I don’t know why I did in the first place, I guess, I just wanted any new to-be-blogger to not have any inhibitions that there’s only technical stuff that can be written on an organization blog (having said that, this is still an organization blogspace and we all need to be mindful of the content posted). So yeah, anyways,  am also planning to compile a list of posts that were written for these prompts soon to let you go find some awesome bloggers who have been writing awesome pieces for most of these prompts (Thanks a bunch :)) – Not all of them have provided the correct tags that I had requested for, but that’s ok, I will look up those posts.. so will take a while, but until then, may be you can pick a few from here and write too and thus stand a chance to feature in that next post 🙂

Keep writing 🙂

If you want to find the original posts of any of these prompts, I am yet to sync most of them here but the one's that are already synced can be found here.. 

~~ [Weekly Prompts – 19.15]: All alone up in the sky ~~

Originally written in my other blogspace on April 15 2019...  I used to give weekly prompts then for the organization internal blogspace.

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Hola from the roo-land!

My blogging journey began when I was in USA and today after about a decade..I am writing again from a different country...

This is my first ever lone onsite trip to a country after being to US about a decade back and staying there for a couple of years...I was single then, had friends there when I reached. Things have changed now, very very much. I don’t exactly remember what I had been thinking the whole long lonely plane trip to USA back then, partly also because the plane was full of screaming babies  and you really cannot think in those circumstances. But this time, leaving a young kid behind, was a nightmare. As I sat all alone at that window seat on the airplane and watched the fluffy clouds pass beneath the plane, all I could think of was my little girl and how this was going to be a huge leap for me and her in our relationship – this separation, this staying apart. People who know us very well, know how protective I am of her and how much of a mommy's girl she is...We have never stayed apart and it was not going to be easy for both of us 🙁

But then,  when the situation and time demands, you need to adapt and learn. You just need to move forward.

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Anyways, as a part of the prompt for this past week, imagine that you are leaving someone important behind and traveling half way across the world because of some commitment - pen those thoughts that cross your mind as you travel...

Get going!

~~ Twenty for Twenty – February and March Journey ~~

Yes, I know am late in posting this!!

And its a long read – so brace yourselves!!

I always thought WFH would help me finally achieve a lot more things that I normally don’t get a chance to or time for – I always thought I’d gain those extra 4 hours that I always spend travelling to and fro office and I can productively use it to do so many things like read more, watch stuff on TV, write more, zentangle more, finish that draft of the novel, exercise more, walk more, take care of myself, help mom, spend more time with the daughter and etc etc… But what I had not expected was that, though not entirely, but most of those 4 hours, I’d still spend glued to the laptop trying to wrap up multiple more things at work.  Sometimes I even have my lunch glued to my laptop – I am not super proud about it. Hmm, it’s so true that grass is always greener on the other side, right? I do know that it’s all about setting those healthy boundaries for a better work-life balance wherever you are working from, home or office (it was also one of my goals this year), but at times like these, when everyone around is trying to cope up and enhance their applications to cater to COVID-19 restrictions, the work-pressure is no less.

Having said that, if given a choice and a chance in future, I’d like to still continue WFH when and if things return to normal.  I’d still opt for it just to avoid the travel. The constant back ache and body ache that I used to have due to the long travels are now missing (and of course, I don’t miss them at all) *Touchwood* . I felt different (good different of course) after a few days of WFH and it took me a while to realize that the difference was, in fact,  the absence of the constant aches in my body. 

Anyways, February and March have been quite interesting – isn’t it?  What with appraisals, bonus, the new facility movement(which sadly has added half hour extra both in the morning and evening to my travel travails from and to office), the Corona Virus scare, the scary numbers increasing day by day in India, the lockdown, the deaths, the sanitization necessities, the WFH, the “Am I audible?”,  “Are you able to see my screen?” and the sudden-cooker-whistling-in-the-background-during-a-call saga! Every year, we feel the that months just whizz by, and this year, it seems like the time has taken this concern seriously and has opted to move as slowly as possible so we can savor every single minute of the not-so-great-so-far year!

I know – that this might not be of interest in the light of current events – but I still wanted to go ahead and post about how I fared in the past two months…

20 for 20 – Career

Work life balance: Though I managed to keep the checking of emails/chats beyond working hours at bay most part of February, I couldn’t do it in March due to the WFH.

Get certified: There was progress (not huge) in February and I was able to complete an easy online certification. But no progress as such in March.

Appreciate often: Doing it as applicable 🙂

20 for 20 – Reading/Writing

Blog at least once a month (2/12): I did blog in February – but did not in March(blame the WFH :P)

One Blogathon per year (0/1):  Haven’t dared to start this yet.

Finish the draft of novel: Haven’t dared to start this yet.

Reading challenge(12/20): I know I know.. I wouldn’t say I completed 12 full fledged books or novels. Probably the actual count would just be 2 so far. The rest are short stories by Jeffrey Archer that I read back to back in February – they were just a couple of pages each, but goodreads shows them up as separate short stories, hence the skewed count.

Sync the external blog space with all the posts: Haven’t started this one yet.

20 for 20 – Others

Travel/Vacation :

Take a break per month to unwind – even if for a day (3/12) –  I did take a break as and when I thought I needed one both in February and March. This is something I am going to continue doing.

Explore local weekend getaways – try visiting at least 5 new places close by (0/5) – None in February and March. Just homebound and trying to stay safe 🙂

Plan proper vacations – Try to cover at least 2 from my bucket list (0/2) – Had finalized April/May to cover at-least one of the bucket list places. Now that is on hold. Probably is going to be on hold for a while, isn’t it?

Health :

Meditate: Thanks to the lockdown – everyday as soon as I wind up from office work, we all sit together and meditate for 5 minutes. Peaceful silent 5 mins of the entire day 😛

Walk at least for half hour every day – Again, thanks to the lockdown -I try to spend atleast half an hour walking every day – 24/366

Squeeze in 10 mins of yoga every day – Again, thanks to the lockdown – 7am to 8am or 7pm to 8pm has become the yoga hour of my day though I haven’t been able to do it diligently every single day – 18/366

Drink more water – This is something that I have been missing on since WFH. Need to consciously drink more water.

General:

Stay strictly offline after 10pm – Go to bed at a reasonable time  – 15/366 – I have not been doing this regularly 🙁

Declutter – Let go of unwanted stuff – I finally cleared one of my old bags with a lot of unwanted old receipts/documents. Many more such bags to go.

Watch a movie per week – 2/53 –  Movie – Flight

Go to a stand-up comedy show (0/1) – Nothing planned yet.

Resume dance classes – Restarted classes, however, the dance teacher went to her hometown before lockdown and hasn’t returned yet. There have been no classes since then 🙁

In addition to the above – I did strike something off my bucket list this year though I had not planned it to happen upfront. It happened by chance and made it all the more memorable 🙂

January – I always wanted to share stage with my daughter and dance with her. We both love dancing and we keep dancing together at home, but there was this teeny tiny wish to go on stage – Done 🙂

February –  I always have wanted to participate in a marathon – took part in a 3km fun run – with the Mr. and the daughter.

March – Work from home – Every mommy out there probably relates to the need of being able to work remotely – so she can just spend that few extra minutes with the family. I always was looking forward for an opportunity to WFH (though there are a lots of cons to it too).  Though it did not happen in the way I would have liked it to, I am trying to make the most of the time that I gain especially now where there’s no morning chaos, no rush to catch the bus to office, no rush to come back home, no travel and most of all, even if I feel tired at the end of the work-day – its still good-tired 🙂

As we have stepped into yet another month with quite a few uncertainities, let’s just bear in mind that “This too shall pass”.  Lets be positive about the current situation and move forward a day at a time!!

Before I wind up from this long boring post – can I ask for just one thing?

Please stay indoors and please stay safe!!

~~ Twenty for Twenty – January Journey ~~

If you have read my December blogathon posts, you are probably aware that I had/have aimed for twenty simple (ahem) goals for this year 2020.

The main reason I declared it here in this space was to make sure I was accountable to providing regular status updates even if you are not interested to know 😛  I knew that if I was accountable somewhere  – I would be pretty diligent in tracking things and would not end up taking it easy 😛  – Having said that, it’s not that I am not accountable otherwise – but I have always noticed that when it comes to taking care of myself or putting my own happiness first, I don’t take it very seriously. Most of us are like that, isn’t it? Hence the need to be accountable somewhere.  Most of the stuff in the goal list actually is about prioritizing myself and my own happiness over other things – and since its not an inherent inbuilt quality yet, I hope to cultivate it slowly through these goals.

So even if you want to or not want to know  – here’s how I progressed in January with these goals….

20 for 20 – Career

Work life balance: Though I have not completely let go – I have taken the first step towards consciously not checking work emails/chats until I reach office. At times, if I am expecting some important communication, I still do it. But not daily anymore.

Get certified: Learning progress towards getting certified was not as expected in January. Need to invest time over weekends.

Appreciate often: Doing it as and when applicable.  Will continue doing it.

20 for 20 – Reading/Writing

Blog at least once a month (1/12): January post

One Blogathon per year (0/1):  Haven’t dared to start this yet.

Finish the draft of novel: Haven’t dared to start this yet.

Reading challenge(0/20): Though I did pick up a book to read, haven’t completed it yet. Reading “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe” by Douglas Adams.

Sync the external blog space with all the posts: Haven’t started this one yet.

20 for 20 – Others

Travel/Vacation :

Take a break per month to unwind – even if for a day (1/12) – I like to believe that I am that optimistic person who keeps looking for that light at the end of tunnel in every situation – but then at times, I do get overwhelmed, frustrated and go into a “God, why only me” mode. I took a day off to rest after such an overwhelming week which resulted in a sleepless night pondering over every personal and work related situation that was frustrating me.  The day I took a break, I switched my phone to aeroplane mode for almost the whole day –  slept most part of the day, picked a new book to read and spent quality time with family. That’s all I needed and I felt quite refreshed by evening. Its so important not to get lost in the process of being on top every single thing in life. Its so important to know that the to-do’s can wait for a day. Sometimes this kind of break is what the body and mind needs and craves for and we need to listen to it and take that break – after all, we are not well-oiled machines to just keep going on and on 😛

Explore local weekend getaways – try visiting at least 5 new places close by (0/5) – None in January

Plan proper vacations – Try to cover at least 2 from my bucket list (0/2) – Yet to plan the actual destination and dates. Months have been finalized.

Health :

• Meditate: Has been difficult. But I have been doing it on and off throughout the month. Need to bring in consistency.
• Walk at least for half hour every day – 14/366
• Squeeze in 10 mins of yoga every day – 3/366
• Drink more water – Been doing it diligently on weekdays. Its the weekends that I waver away, need to keep a check.

General:

• Stay strictly offline after 10pm – Go to bed at a reasonable time  – 10/366
• Declutter – Let go of unwanted stuff – Haven’t dared to let go of any stuff yet.
• Watch a movie per week – 1/53 –  Movie – Arthur
• Go to a stand-up comedy show (0/1) – Nothing planned yet.
• Resume dance classes – Restarted classes, however a note to self: Be regular 🙂

Did you set any goals for yourself this year?  How are you progressing? Do let me know 🙂

~~ Three movies ~~

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Hey all! My first post of this year!  I really can’t believe we are almost at the tad end of the first month of this new year already!

Have been meaning to post this from quite some time now, but haven’t been able to narrow down the movies to just 3.  Even if I proceed to tweak it to list the favorite genres that I have watched so far, its impossible to list only 3.  There are just too many movies in each genre to mention!

So I decided finally to stick and choose from movies I watched in the past year (2019) and list 3 movies that stayed with me for a while after watching it. So here you go –

• Vanilla Sky(English) – It is a psychological thriller with no scary, chilling scenes or ear splitting screams – yet leaves you in a daze and a confused state at the end that you want to watch it again to understand if you interpreted the whole of it right. I felt so only for a few movies and this one made me all curious. I read a lot about lucid dreaming and related scientific research for a few days after watching this movie. Do watch and let me know if you got as confused as I did 😛
• 99(Kannada) – I very rarely watch Kannada movies. Not stating it proudly, of course. There are quite a few good movies out there and this movie(though I know its a remake) restored the faith that I need to make it a point to watch more regional movies. I had heard about ’96’ Tamil movie quite a bit and it was on my to-watch list, however, when I found the Kannada remake of it Prime – I didn’t want to wait any further. Though I would have preferred to watch the original first, I still went for it. I absolutely loved the movie. It made me quite nostalgic. It also succeeded in tugging at the heartstrings.  There are cute yet poignant moments throughout the movie and the pure love on either side just made me wonder “If only” at times.. but then few relationships are only meant to end so and just remain beautiful in memories, the essence of love is lost otherwise.  I am waiting to watch it in the original Tamil version. I am sure its a treat to watch as well.  Of course, a must watch!!
• October (Hindi) –  Now, I don’t think most liked the movie. I recommended it to my brother and SIL, and they were not very happy with the recommendation (I think). Well, Its sad. Its melancholic. Its mostly silent too. But its innocent, soulful, ethereal and overwhelming too. The portrayal of selfless silent love is just beautiful. The movie stayed with me for a very long time. I didn’t expect it to, but it did. Do go watch it and don’t blame me if you cry your heart out (BTW, I cry for every other movie as you might already know from this post(to be synced) of mine, so am not to blame here)

How about you? Do you want to list your 3 favorites?

~~ Happy New Year !! ~~

The last post of the blogathon (of course 2 posts short), the last post of this year and the decade as well ( Its a decade of blogging for me).. Hmmm...Though I wanted to write a long post highlighting quite a few things.. I finally decided to keep it short and simple. 

I'd like to thank Rixi, Sukalp, Jayalakshmi, Meenakshi, Rohini, Poorani, Balaiah, Vandhana, Hema, Madhangi, Dinesh, Jairam, Prabha, Bhagwath for being a constant support by reading and leaving comments on my posts whole of this month - Few of you almost on every single post. Your comments meant a lot to me in this month long journey.  Thank you so much :-) Also, Thank you all so much for speedy recovery wishes as well for my little one!!

The year has been a busy blur and the decade has been a mixed bag with lot of learnings. I am sure, all of you would have had your share of ups and downs. As we step into a new year in few hours, I wish for lots of peace and happiness for all of us in the upcoming year!! May all of us grow stronger and kinder in the coming years.  Wish you and your family a very wonderful prosperous year ahead. 

~~ Another Update ~~

I know. I haven't updated the space for the past two days.

As I had mentioned in this post - We had a road trip planned in the last week of this December. Nothing fancy as we knew every other place would be crowded due to Christmas and New year holidays. Our trip began last Tuesday (24th) and was supposed to end today.  All went well, until 28th evening - when in a crowd, my little one's foot got stuck under a barricade and resulted in her toenail getting chipped off completely. There was so much blood - and the little one was wailing so loudly - that I just felt helpless - it took few seconds to register that something had happened as everyone around had started screaming suggestions. There was a lady guard who offered her hand kerchief, with which we bound the wound to stop the blood flow and she guided us to first aid center in the premises - which unfortunately turned out to be closed. She asked us to wait there and rushed to get a first aid kit - we, by then, had assessed that it definitely needed a doctor, not just first aid.  The lady guard got us a cleaning spirit and gauze roll bandage to tie the wound. I cleaned the wound and wrapped it up as soon and based on her recommendation of a nearby hospital, we rushed there. After the on-duty doctors had a look, they advised for an x-ray to ensure there was no bone damage - before any further handling - and then once x-ray was clean, they cleaned the wound and tied it up again to stop blood oozing. They also asked us to wait for a pediatric surgeon's opinion to know if we can better remove the nail then leave it hanging there for it to fall off all by itself. After much deliberation, we finally agreed for a minor procedure to remove the complete nail under local anesthesia - the nail was anyways completed chipped off and cleaning & dressing it everyday in that state would be difficult and much painful.  The whole of it was quite a horrifying experience - especially for the little one. We spent almost the whole evening in the hospital running pillar to post to get things set for the minor procedure and amidst the little ones wails :( We reached the hotel room late night -  I did remember that I still had the post for the day pending - but, I was in no state to gather my thoughts to jot down anything :(

Yesterday we took her again to hospital for re-dressing the areas and to ensure there was no blood seeping out. Her wound is healing as expected and the sight of it looked much better than the day before.  There were a few wails and screams during re-dressing, but I must say, she was quite brave, honestly, much much braver than me through the whole ordeal. And in the past two days, apart from the event that hurt her till the actual procedure and apart from the re-dressing yesterday - she didn't fuss much. She was back to her old self - trying to make the most of what she could from the vacation as soon as she could. Something I should definitely learn from her as I was sulking for her, more than she was sulking for herself, yesterday.

Anyways, we are back home today - we need to be careful not to let any water seep in to the wound until its healed - and we are to go for a re-dressing tomorrow.

Do wish her toe a speedy recovery, please.

~~ Four Books ~~

For whatever reasons - looks like the alert for yesterday's post never went out.  So if you missed reading that one, do click on the hyperlink and let me know your thoughts.

I know I haven't been posting the each day post of "Ten day you challenge" in a continuous flow - I myself needed a break from posting that every day and so skipped a few days in between and posted something else for a change :P  

So the next one on the challenge was to post about four books - now, how can I ever pick just four from the huge favorite list I have - its absolutely impossible.. So I am gonna tweak it to list the genres that I enjoy the most and then list my favorite authors/books from those genres... Too much of tweaking, I know, but, its definitely not possible for me to list just one book even if I narrow it down to a genre :P

Favorite Genre 1 - Thrillers: I absolutely love reading thrillers. I need to read a thriller to get me back into reading mode when I have tried a book from any other genres. The anticipation of the ending, the process of deduction as I read, figuring out the climax, and then waiting to see if I was right, the legal intricacies and exciting twists and turns, the nail biting reads that doesn't let me sleep a wink sometimes - thrills me. My favorite authors of this genre are John Grisham(legal thrillers), Dan brown, Jeffrey Archer, Robin Cook(Medical thrillers), Mary Higgins Clark,  Agatha Christie, Lee Child and Stephen King. I cannot list just one book of any author as my favorite book - every single book I have read of these authors are my favorites for its own reason.

Favorite Genre 2 - Romance:  This was not my initial favorite of genres. I read one "Mills and Boons" novel and I was forever done with this genre. All of it changed when I read " The Bridges of Madison County" by Robert James Waller - Thanks to a friend who loaned it to me for a weekend. I didn't read it until Monday morning breakfast time and I then bunked office that day for completing it (I have not even bunked in college, forget bunking work, so that's something very huge in my life). For such a dry title, the book is not at all that. The myth was broken and I finally understood romance genre doesn't mean only Mills and Boons. I moved on to "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell and this is my all-time favorite.  The other worthy mention that made me not ditch this genre is "P.S. I Love You" by Cecelia Ahern. 

Favorite Genre 3 - Fantasy: This is a recent addition to my favorite genres. I must admit, I haven't tried a lot in this genre and the one that I can really boast of is the Harry Potter series. Oh, I hated these books and movies initially for all the hype it had created - and it didn't help that I watched one of the movies (probably the third one in the series) before I read or watched it in sequence, and I couldn't get head or tail of whatever was happening on big screen. It didn't pique any interest in me for these reasons - But being the curious one, I bought the box set just to see for myself the reason of hype around this. It was on my book shelf for a quite a few years, before I braved to read it. I couldn't stop once I began, and I now cannot stop feeling silly for ignoring it for so long. A definite potter head now.  "A Song of Ice and Fire" is something I haven't been able to generate any interest similar to Harry Potter series - but since having this experience with Harry potter series - I have now marked this series to read next in fantasy genre (If you want to gift me, "A Song of Ice and Fire" box set should be your  first choice :P) .

Favorite Genre 4 - Fiction that doesn't fit in any of the above three genres: I really don't know which genres I should fit these books in as they are quite diverse and am constrained here to list only 4 - so I titled this point broadly so :P Following are my absolute favorites apart from whatever I have mentioned in the previous three points:

The help by Kathryn Stockett,  To kill a mocking bird by Harper Lee, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger , The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy, A tale of two cities by Charles Dickens, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Erich Segal 's Novels, Khaled  Hosseini's novels - Oh, I think I will go on to list everything I have read at this pace :P  So, I am going to stop here. 

If you want to know what I have read till now - my humble list is available here.

Do you have any favorite books? Can you try to list just four :roll:

Well, I don't mind if its more, you know? I will definitely make sure to add it to my never ending to-read list if its not already there :P :)

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20 for 20 - Others

Twenty for Twenty - And here goes the rest of the 12 Goals

Travel/Vacation :

• Take a break per month to unwind – even if for a day (0/12)
• Explore local weekend getaways – try visiting at least 5 new places close by (0/5)
• Plan proper vacations – Try to cover at least 2 from my bucket list (0/2)

Health :

• Meditate: Meditation can be intimidating for me as my mind is always buzzing with thoughts.  I am planning to use the first 10 minutes out of my travel time to just close my eyes and think about nothing - difficult, I know - Lets see how it goes.
• Walk at least for half hour every day (0/366)
• Squeeze in 10 mins of yoga every day (0/366)
• Drink more water

General:

• Stay strictly offline after 10pm - Go to bed at a reasonable time (0/366)
• Declutter - Let go of unwanted stuff
• Watch a movie per week (0/53)
• Go to a stand-up comedy show (0/1)
• Resume dance classes

I have a journal (a sort of bullet journal) where I track a lot of stuff - but then, even there, I felt, it was not tracked diligently this year. The main reason I wanted to post these goals out here was to have some kind of accountability - which I hope to maintain this time. 

There you go, seems simple enough goals to me.. but will have to wait and see what the new year brings :)

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20 for 20 - Reading and Writing goals

Twenty for Twenty - Reading/Writing goals: 

Blog at least once a month (0/12):

Now, this depends on you :) The more you leave comments, the more I feel encouraged to write.

One Blogathon per year (0/1):

Blogathon as such is hard. One who takes it up, knows the effort that goes into it. Writing every day takes a lot of determination and of course, effort.  Irrespective of other commitments and responsibilities in life, you need to resolve to write daily during a blogathon. Since this is something I want to do each day of my life - a blogathon helps me with the discipline aspect of it. I don’t plan the content beforehand. Sometimes I don’t even proof read. So when I do a blogathon, the content I post is straight from the heart, those raw emotions, those pent up thoughts, the real me -  it is such an interesting experience when these emotions get flushed out every day. And to top it all, the pure joy that every single comment on each post of blogathon brings is something I look forward to – Now, who doesn’t want to experience a month of smiles, right?

Finish the draft of novel:

For those of you don’t know – I have already self-published a set of short stories. I have been meaning to publish a proper novel from so long. Have written mere ~5000 words. I need to commit to finish at least the draft of this one in 2020. If I haven't completed the draft by start of November 2020, I will need to attempt nanowrimo.

Reading challenge(0/20):

Goal would be to read 20 books this year. I’d want to finally pick the ignored books that beckon me from my bookshelf. I also ought to charge and sync my Kindle regularly, and of course read a few short stories there.

Sync the external blog space with all the posts:

From a few years now, I have made it a point to post there first before I even post here. That way I don't have to worry about syncing later on. Syncing is hard. I am yet to sync a few very old posts and ensure I add all the relevant blog links in my newer posts to link these old posts. I plan to dedicate some time for this work, this year. I also want to jazz up my external blog space a bit - so yeah, that too.

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So these are my resolutions in reading/writing category! How about you?
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And before I forget, a very merry Christmas to you all :-) Hope big ol' Santa delivered all your gifts :-)

20 for 20 - Career goals

Twenty for Twenty- Career Goals

Work life balance:

My morning is chaos. The first proper breathing minute I get for myself is when I board the bus to office around 7:45am. The first thing I do after I buy a ticket is check my mails/chats (Its already noon in Australia, so there's already lot out there waiting for us to come online). This helps me prepare mentally for the day ahead. Yep, not good. I was worse earlier, I used to check emails/chats as soon as I’d wake up. I have now somehow managed to restrain myself until I board the bus. At times, I just start responding immediately and then, there's no stopping after that. Same cycle repeats when I start home in the evening as well and this time with my teams here. I am not proud of this. I want to be able to let things be and deal work stuff only in working hours. I am in awe of people who know how to draw this line. I also appreciate people who do not have this urge to check and respond to emails or chats on a holiday - you are on a holiday after all. I currently don’t draw a line. I want to do that. A small step at a time to practice the much needed detachment and balance.

Get certified:

I started learning something new this year. I hope to get certified in that area of expertise in 2020. Wish me luck  :)

Appreciate often:

Refer my last point of this post.

~~ Five foods ~~

Ah! The post about food.

But, wait, no, its so unfair,  am supposed to list only five - now, that's going to be very very difficult!!

I thought for quite a few hours about my favorites - but I figured, I just can't list top 5 foods. So finally, here I am, with five favorite cuisines - now, that's better, isn't it :P :P :P 

1. South Indian - Of course! I love everything about South Indian food - the aromatic spicy spices, the ghee laden curries, the fried bajjis and pakoras, filter coffee, the crunchy vadams and pappadums, the typical home made comfort food of idlis, dosas, vadas, sambhar and rasams, bisibelebath, vangi baath, tomato baath, puliogarai, those occasion and location specific snacks and sweets and last but not the least, the pickles - Oh, I can go on and on. 

2. North Indian - The paneer curries, the samosas, the finger-licking-yummy chaats and the plethora of sweets, the aloo parathas with the pickle/curd combo - oh - what's not to like!  

3. Konkani cuisine - Now, this is my favorite comfort food. If you need to make me happy - just offer me a plate of ghee & coconut laden Konkani comfort food and I'd be super happy woman. Nothing beats this. A funny aspect of this is that I have noticed that you need to be a born Konkani to share this love for Konkani cuisine - no offense, no one loves Konkani cuisine as natives do :P  

4. Italian - Pizza's and Pasta's :P  Awwww....... my favorites are Indianized Pizza's (the ones with the Paneer masala etc) and White Sauce Pasta's ... I also love their mushroom dishes, especially the Funghi Trifolati -  easy to prepare and just yummy... am droooling already... The funniest thing is that the bestest Pizza's and Pasta's I have had so far was in India and US -  not Italy :P 

5. Mexican -  Its very difficult when you are a vegetarian and you step outside India. There are times when I have survived only on chips, French fries and Hashbrowns. The only thing that came very close to the feeling of having Indian food was having Mexican food - In US, Chipotle was like home away from home.  Their Mexican Burrittos and Quesadillas though quite different, atleast felt close to Chapathi and Rice from home :P 

There you go - my five favorites - how about yours? 

~~ Six Places ~~

So, here comes the fifth post of the ten day you challenge! It's to write about six places... 

Here goes my six favourites...

1. The first place that comes to my mind, is, of course, my hometown, Udupi. A place where we used to come for summer vacation every single time and never wanted to be anywhere else  :-p 

2. Initial years of my childhood had been in Mysore. I love the city for its calm and peaceful atmosphere. It still is how Bangalore used to be ages ago. I have beautiful memories of this city. One of which is going to Mysore Palace on Sunday evenings -  find some space to sit in the palace garden and munch on roasted peanuts savoring the sight of the well lit palace - that was like a family tradition of sorts. 

3. Most of my teenage years were spent in Tamilnadu. I absolutely have great memories of growing up here. I dont feel much nostalgic as such when I visit Mysore. But I sure feel a lot nostalgic when I visit the places I have lived or travelled in Tamilnadu. I also know that the person I am now, the core of my personality, is strongly and mainly influenced by the most empathetic and "giving" environment in which I grew up when here. My best friend is from this place and we still are in touch. Miss it. 

4. Even before I could properly explore India, (Thanks to the standard summer vacation destination during  childhood and later of course our own financial conditions) - I went to US of A. Absolutely a time I cherish. It helped me grow financially, of course, but it also helped me grow as a person. I know, I changed heaps during my stay here. I pushed myself out of my comfort zones and the stay brought in a lot many changes in my way of thinking. If I am open minded about a lot of things now, somewhere, this 2 year onsite stint would be the major contributor to it.  I travelled and covered all the coasts in that 2 year stint and even managed to win a jackpot in Las Vegas :-p.. but if I have to pick a place that I absolutely loved, it'd be New York, just for the fact that it reminded me so much of home. I must say, I am very glad that I travelled and stayed in USA before marriage. I know now that my husband is not much of an "exploring new places" kinda person :-p  ...The only regret I have is that I couldn't make my parents agree to visit USA during my stint there. They did not agree. I begged them to come and stay with me, but it never materialized :-(.. Like any middle class families of those years, the first priority for them, was to ensure that I saved that expense for my future and never be dependent on any one. It's to that and many more such sacrifices that I owe that house I managed to buy even before I got married.  

5. Europe: My brother is in Europe and we visited him recently. The trip to his place and rest of Europe is one of the most memorable family trips. Every single place that we covered in that month long trip is still fresh in my memory and it's difficult to pick just one place. I would strongly recommend exploring Europe on your own than opting  for package trips, especially if you can plan the whole thing and dont have fussy eaters with you.  Believe me, the experience of exploring on your own is worth it (Of course,  you just need to be wary of limited food options if you are vegetarian)

6. Australia: My most recent visit was to Australia. It was a short time assignment and as luck might have it, it was during my daughter's summer vacation. I have never lived without her and though company wouldn't sponsor her or family expenses due to short term assignment(which is fair), I still wanted to take her for the odd 3 months - I couldn't  imagine staying away from her for so long. I also forced my parents to join me this time. My parents again sang me the saving for future song, but I didnt budge, nor did I care. I had to travel first, but had applied for their visas through a travel agent before leaving. Booked their tickets online after their visitor visas were processed and finally they arrived.  The whole process till they arrived was quite nerve wracking as tracking progress of Australian visitor visas is nothing less than a nightmare. The void of not being able to get my parents to come visit and stay with me when I was in USA was finally filled this time. Of all the places we managed to visit when we were in Australia, our absolute favorite was the Great Ocean Road stretch. If you ever go to Australia, make sure you have this on your itinerary. You'll not regret it. 

So there you go, my six favourites. How about you?

~~ A to Z ~~

Have been reading too much about CAA and NRC from yesterday.. So to distract myself, I thought I'd better do some random meme today.. so here goes.. found it in my meme folder from years ago...  do try it out .. :-)

A- Age - Huh, Like am going to reveal that.

B- Biggest fear - Losing people I love.

C- Current time: 11:41pm

D- Drink you last had: A warm glass of turmeric milk

E- Every day starts with: Snoozing the alarm!

F- Favourite Song: There's just too many. But since Linkin park is on loop from yesterday, any song by that band.

G- Ghosts, are they real? I guess :evil:

H- Hometown:Udupi

I -In love with: People I love :-)

J- Jealous of? Nothing, really. 

K- Killed someone?: Do Mosquitoes and Cockroaches count?

L- Last time you cried?: Today, while trying out a new nose pin which was stuck and refused to let me go. Painful. 

M- Middle name: Alevoor

N- Number of siblings: One

O- One wish: Happiness

P- Person you last called? Mom

Q- Question you’re always asked: Are you a Bengali?

R- Reason to smile: Many

S- Sounds that annoy you: People talking loudly on phone in public.

T- Time you woke up: 6am to snooze alarm and then 7am :-p...Hey, its Saturday!

U- Umbrella colour : Light blue

V- Vacation destination:  Just too many to list 

W- Worst habit: Procrastination

X- X-Rays you’ve had: The ones during company sponsored yearly medical checkups 

Y- Your favourite food: Just too many to choose

Z- Zodiac sign: Aquarius

~~ Numb ~~

Yesterday was a nightmare. I stay about 60kms away from office, so it was a bit scary when I got to know that buses were not plying and that curfew was imposed. I do have relatives near my workplace, so there was an alternate, of course, but then, home is home, right? More importantly, at these times.  On the way back home, I saw kids as young as maybe 7 or 8 years old, marching in the protest - I couldn't believe my eyes. I just went numb.  I vented it out in a group where I can vent out without hopefully getting branded as pro or anti any political party and hopefully not offending anyone. I was exhausted after all the vent as it went on and on about how few things were right and some things were not and all that related blah - I didn't want to write more here yesterday. What's happening is quite numbing and to me, a bit confusing too.

Things have been pretty okay at my place today - office was closed for safety reasons, but a few of us who could, connected from home.  

The whole day - only two lines were running in loop in my mind - 

"I've become so numb, I can't feel you there, Become so tired, so much more aware" 

In these trying times, I hope and pray for peace. Lets all do. 

Trivia that's not required, but I thought I will give out anyways: The above mentioned lines are from a song - not related to any context of whatever is happening currently - the actual complete song deals with some other emotion altogether - but these two lines just kept coming back to me today. Listen to it if you haven't yet (Numb by Linkin park - one of my utmost favorites). The first time you hear it, you may not like it. I didn't, honestly. And then, you hear it a few times (why? Because your brother forces you to) and then it slowly grows on you and ends up being your utmost favorite song. And then you hear some more songs from the band (again, because your brother thinks all that screaming is so meaningful :P) and after a few forced listening sessions, it ends up becoming your favorite band and you end up liking all that meaningful screaming too! Yep, happens. Now that I think about all this screaming even more with a context - the song "In the end" by the band replaces the "Numb" song running-in-loop-since-so-many-hours and "In the end" is now stuck in an infinite loop!  Sigh :(

This is what is running in my mind now - "In the end, It doesn't even matter"  So true, isn't it? 

Peace!