GPS torture.

She is the guardian angel who guides us through main and off roads..she leads us not into wrong routes , and delivers us from radars… she shows us through green pastures of the shortest road…she is none other than our lady gadget, the GPS.

When we have absolutely no idea or even a sense of direction about the place we want to go, she comes to our rescue.

‘After 400 meters, keep right’..’Follow the course of the road for 8 kilometers’ ..’Observe speed limit’…’At the roundabout take the third exit’..says she, and when we err, she forgives us by saying , ‘Route recalculation’ and routes us back on track.

After having gracefully rendered so much service, and helping us reach home after every weekend, my hubby heartlessly replaced her voice to that of another female, who sounded very stylish with a fake accent. Poor Lady gadget. She silenced herself and gave way to the new quirky female, who was more concerned of her accent than in route calculation. After much argument from my side to get rid of her, hubby updated the GPS altogether, and now it’s a guy, and his dialogues are different too.

Instead of ‘Observe speed limit’, the new guy says …’Observe speed limit…we will always stick to it, wont we?’ (sounds gay, doesn’t he) and instead of ‘Follow the course of the road’, he says ‘Follow the course of the road and everything will be just fine’.

This guy is unbelievably annoying and more often sounds like a priest talking to his lost sheep. The more I am irritated by his comments, the more amused is my better half.

So one fine day, we were helplessly lost and had to turn on the priest for his righteous sermon, which presumably leads us from darkness to light . Halfway through the lost world, the road looked familiar to us and I told hubby…’Now that we know the rest of the road … can we switch off this navigation torture’…hubby nodded but dint show any signs of switching it off. I repeatedly urged him to switch off the damn thing, each time my decibel levels rising, and then came his reply.

“Please keep quiet, and everything will be just fine”.

First Anniversary to Exit Hassles !

Hello Friends, I'm celebrating the first year of exit from my previous firm, from where the exit hassles are not completed yet !

I left my previous firm a year ago, and ever since I’d been hopefully checking my bank account to see whether my PF amount is credited.  As my salary account is with a foreign bank which liberally allows people like me to maintain zero balance without any penalty (well, if I had the money to pay penalty would my account be empty) I make the maximum use of this provision. So if my PF is debited I can easily make out without using the calculator ( some losers has six and 7 digit balance on their account so they have to see the account summary to see how much PF has been credited …thank God I do not have any such troubles).

 Some of my friends actually said that they badly wanted to quit from their firms but when they think of these exit formalities it makes them think twice. Now I understand the painful truth behind it.

*A few words of enlightenment to anyone who plans to quit*

Once a resignation letter is submitted, then you are prone to extremely harsh and ruthless behavior from your managers and leads. (As if it wasn’t like that before).Okay, lets say it gets worse. (Can it get any worse? Yes it can, try sending a resignation letter). Then you will be called by your manager and he will brainwash you to make you realize that working with him is next to achieving salvation. Of course, you won’t fall into that trap. So his next step is to extend your notice period, making you do donkey work like documentation, etc, asking you to share knowledge  (ya , right !) in multiple sessions, assigning your workstation to someone else so you have to beg,  borrow or steal computers to check emails and the like. Then the HR calls up and says that she had been your personal HR representative (you’ll be forced to exclaim ‘Really!’ but DONT). She would ask you to specify the reason for taking such an extremely drastic decision, in a tone which sounds like you won a million dollar lottery and decided to donate it for charity) and also ask you whether you would think about joining back in future. You’d have vowed never to let even your enemies join there, but never say it, if you want a smooth relieving.

* end of enlightenment*

I had the additional privilege during my notice period, that I talked to the HR for like forty minutes from the balcony of the 8^th floor of my office and one guy from the admin asked me to get inside and he promptly shut the door behind me. He’d received  confidential information from an anonymous resource that ‘one girl is standing at the edge’ and had come to save me from committing suicide. As I got inside I got pitiful stares from an entire floor of people. Thanks, you guys. Ironically I was about to tell the HR that working there had always been a suicidal experience for me.

Anyway a year passed and I received an email from them. Here goes :

Hi,

We have received your PF withdrawal forms. While processing we have noticed the following error in the documents submitted by you.

•       You have not submitted form 10C.
•       So you have to submit Form 10C.
•       Please find the attached Form 10C.

Did you notice the rhythm of that email. You could make a nursery rhyme out of it. Anyway I will do whatever it takes to get my PF back.

So, my ex employer,

• I was not aware of Form 10C.
• But now I have duly filled Form 10 C.
• Please see the attached Form 10C.
• Kindly accept the Form 10C.

For God’s sake, Give me my PF !!

How a painting turned me pale :(

The college where my Mom taught looked stereotypical of an old university. Large hectares of land, buildings which looked haunted , cobwebs which signified home to generations of spiders, and the names of students starting from the 60’s engraved on every wall.  In between if one spots a room with a potted plant or a creeper, it is probably my Mom’s. She has a penchant for interior designing, decorative furniture, indoor plants, wall hangings and these attract her more than sarees or gold (Or so, I think ;-) ). Our home in Trivandrum and her room in college are living examples to her vast experiments. She has a creative eye to see aesthetic beauty even in the weirdest piece of wood.  Over the years I too started loving wall hangings and hung a few of them in my room.

Soon after my marriage I realized that my better half doesn’t appreciate wall hangings. However I got a few oil paintings as gifts on my wedding and carried them enthusiastically to Bangalore where we rented a home. Soon our home was garnished with new furniture, carpets  - well the carpets were to cover the innumerable wires of the home theatre that went helter skelter on the floor. A clock was nailed on the wall of the living room.

One Saturday when he had to be at office, I took out the oil painting which featured Shakuntala . It was a very common Ravi Varma duplicate piece, but looked quite awesome. I replaced the clock in the living room, with the painting.  The painting was quite large to go unnoticed… and when he was back, he gave me a gyaan on how functional the clock was to the living room, compared to the 'useless' painting I hung in its place. I continued to hold a deaf ear to it as it wasn't  a big deal anyway.

Few days later, we were informed about guests who were to arrive on a short notice and I had to rush to the kitchen to cook a meal. Planning and execution of a last minute meal wasn’t easy for an expert cook like me, who relies on cook books and long distance calls to boil eggs right…still efforts continued until every cutlery crockery and utensil was smeared with bits and parts of the ultimate lunch which was being cooked. Hubby continued to dictate the route on phone to the guests who were already on their way. ( If it was me I would have told them longest route to reach here…) but I couldn’t afford to handle more disasters than the ones which were already cooking in a pressure cooker, frying pan, microwave oven and rice cooker simultaneously. Lunch time was fast approaching, the guests had almost reached and I called out to him to know what time it was. Pat came a roar from the living room.

'Ask Shakuntala ! '

A portrait experiment.

It was my Mom’s b’day last week, and I thought… a pencil sketch of one of her prized possessions – a black and white photo taken from a studio soon after her marriage would be a creative gift.

I discussed this with my hubby  and he gave me an encouraging and hyper excited ‘thumbs up’ – Of course he is thinking of the hours of peace there would be in the house once I start the venture.  Anyway I took my art drawing book, eraser and all the graphite and charcoal pencils and sat on my bed. I held the photo on one hand. Here I go…Papa stood on the left side and looked less complicated; so I decided to start with him.

 I took a deep breath.

Sketching him looked easy. The long and pointed collar of the 70’s which almost dipped into his shirt pocket, and the bell bottomed pants were not as complicated as the silk saree my mother wore.  Thankfully for me, he sported a normal moustache and not the Veerappan one which was a rage of those times. However, he had thick hair and eyebrows, and I got confused on which pencil to use. If I use the charcoal pencil it would look like a wig. I’ll go with the graphite one. HB looked fine. Few strokes on paper.  And the inevitable eraser brushed out the little that I made. Not to worry…I said to myself,  no artist ever worked without making flaws. Yes, I call myself an ‘artist’ . 

I continued to console myself, arrogantly dismissing the fact that my confidence is down by a level now . I’ll draw the faces at the last…I procrastinated, and decided to start with the shoulder. So here comes Papa’s shoulder! Oh man, he is wearing a white shirt. Or is he?  These Black and White photographs…! How complicated they are compared to the colored ones! This portrait would have been completed and framed by now if the original was taken in a SLR camera. ahem :D

Or is he wearing his wedding shirt which is actually white ? But the creases and folds are not visible. And the collar…where does it start from ? Looks like it grew from his neck. Make an outline, Anita, make an outline ! So an outline was made up to the belt. And eureka…I drew the belt too. But he is not standing straight like I just drew…he is slightly slanting towards Mom’s side. And the belt I drew was oversized and looked like hat of Santa’s. Its eraser time!!

If I complete this picture Papa would look like Shrek and Mom would get the most abusive gift of her life. I painfully realized that I can’t make portraits and went back to do what I do best better… the birthday post for Mom on my blog. I got a ‘like’ for it on facebook and a few comments.

I'm now, a happy and contended daughter.