1. I have 'Agony Aunt' written on my head. Or so some people think. Narayan, the driver, started off by asking if I was related to a particular colleague (lets call him X) by any chance? When I replied in the negative, I let loose a series of Mr. X-bashing, from him. Turns out Mr. X had been using the car for his domestic purposes which included dropping kids off to school, wife off to college and then entire family off for shopping, almost daily. As I ve
mentioned before, L&T as a policy does not allot one car - per person, atleast in most cases, for even high level officials. So here was a typical case of perk-misuse, where the poor driver suffered, since he needs to record his vehicles daily mileage. I certainly hope for Narayan's sake, that this issue gets resolved soon.
2. The team is counting down to 'Boss's Departure date' yet again.
Well, so is Boss :)
Not sure if Boss's Boss is doing the same though :)
3. It's getting closer to 'contract-winding up time' for most expats here. So there is talk in the air of possible contractual extensions. I am not sure I want that, but never say never right ?
4. Wednesday night was spent at the Dentist's and later with Mom and Dad for dinner at Stomach II in Seven Bungalows. Mid-Wednesday meet-ups with the folks, prove to be a lot of fun and very therapeutic, in a strange sort of way, in an otherwise crazy week.
4. Thursday was "Shri Vishwakarma Pooja" Day at Site. Vishwakarma, as most would know, is the Hindu deity of craftsmen. This is the day that all construction sites, are closed for work as machines/ equipment etc are decorated and venerated. The Airport T-2 Site pooja, that we went to attend, was at a massive scale, easily beating one of the sarvajanik Ganesh Pandals that the city had seen just a few weeks ago. Sadly this was another day I
didnt have a camera, so had to make do with the phone to take pictures.
5. Channel surfing on the T.V at home and I came across Channel 1, which telecasts the 24 hour security camera in the building lobby downstairs. I bet this is normal for most high-rises in the city, but I ve never seen this happen even in NY. What fun if one could, while switching channels, fall upon channel 1 on their T.V, see an unwanted guest coming home and then decide to play truant to such visitors ? Not a bad idea, eh, this camera telecast? I can think of multiple other uses for this sneak-preview, but I ll let them rest for now :)
6. Tamil co-worker walking past me, looks down at my snake-skin print Steve Maddens' and screams: "Aiyyoo, snake skinnn aaa?"
I looked down at my shoe first and then at him in disgust and retorted: "Illai, Plastic-aaa!"
He scarrums off with a relieved "Apdiyaa? Cherri cherri"
In my head I exclaim "Venkateshwara" and walk off! :)
7. Saturday was submission day again, after which the plan was to go watch 'Dil Boley Hadippa' with the office gang. 8 of us from work found ourselves en route to Cinemax to watch a rather fun-filled flick, with Rani Mukherjee and Shahid Kapur playing the lead roles. An otherwise regular movie, the experience of watching any such flick in India, is always pleasant. Having been centered around cricket and Punjabis', the movie drew hilarious impromptu 'bhangra' steps from Sardarji's sitting in front of us to standing ovations at consecutive 6's and 4's, behing hurled across in the cricket field on screen :) Not to mention the familiar sounds of kids talking and crying in the background, without which the soundtrack of any movie-watching experience in Mumbai is so incomplete.
8. The week, being one before Dusshera, has specific significance to it. The office girls sent out messages on the internal office messenger - 'Groove', saying each day stands for a certain colour. So this Friday onwards, almost compulsarily so to say, one will have to wear the colour of the day. This 9-day colour-dress code in the office, ends with the grand 'Traditional/ Sari Day', that I thought I had seen the last of, in my early college years. So while all the girls at work, plan to wear a sari on Friday of next week, I am not sure yet, of the same. The coming week will tell :)
9. Sunday morning started off with a 10 miler in the gym. Mum took us to Woodlands Cafe for lunch, to celebrate my Hindu-calendar birthday :). Woodlands was another oft-visited place in my childhood, but turned out that the interiors are not as great as they used to be then. Thankfully the same could not be said for the food, since it was still as yum. A paper dosa, two Royal Woodlands Thaalis and chhaas/ jaljeeras later we headed to Naturals for ice cream. My weekly massage that I look forward to all week long, was relaxing as was the 'evening chai and khaari biscuit' at Mom's a few hours later. The evening was spent at a 'Nuts' reunion (our famous 5-chica school group) at Snehi's place. I picked up Titu (our very first Nut friend, who got married at 20) and Boskey (her 9 year old son) en-route to Snehi's place. Ira was dressed in her li'll chaniya choli, all ready to go play dandiya-garba downstairs. Although the re-union lasted a short while, we had a fun time and it was good to see the second generation of the Nuts' trying to bond :) Looking forward to many more such, with the rest of the Nuts as well (The other two are in California and Phoenix).
Dinner was at Mums place again, the simple yet unbeatable 'bhindi' and daal, while laughing between snippets of 'Hera Pheri' and 'Dostana' on T.V :)
Week No. 16 in pictures is here:
The week ahead looks like it's going to be a really busy one, socially speaking! And on the weekend I fly back to NY, to celebrate my birthday with the hubby and friends :) Cant wait!!
Until then, while I go tackle some other senior management, anti-social elements at work, yet again :) you take care and I ll see you in a week!
Love,
Shweyta
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