Life is short - Dont waste a minute

Monday, September 29, 2003

Generally surfing through rediff and indiatimes. most carry reports on karisma's wedding and pictures and articles of the same. Reminded me of d who is so star struck that she would never fail to read the gossip and live stories of bollywood stars. she was and am assuming still is a walking talking encyclopedia on what our stars are upto. There used to be days that she would pick up the phone to call and say ..u know madhuri dixit did this...and twinkle was seen here.I am sure that the first thing she would have done today is scan through all the stories and pictures devouring news eagerly about who attended and what they wore and said!!!
There was this one time we were in a cab on our way to eat pani puri. We were desp hungry. Suddenly she saw two guys who resembled MTV Vj's Ranvir and his fat pal...she screamed asked the cab to stop made me get out of the car and follow these guys. We reached them and they turned ...well to her extreme disappointment they turned out to be some strange tourists who were baffled as to why we were following them around!!!
Well i have had good times with D and I amd me never fail to recount the amusing times we have had with her. I wish she was around to call me and tell me abt karisma's wedding...
Posted by malvika at 10:19 PM |

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Jivha sent me an interesting artcle in the BBC :

India faces key marriage ruling
An Indian man is planning to appeal after a landmark ruling in the Calcutta High Court that he has no right to force his wife to live with his family.

Women would be able to choose who they live with
Ashis Ghose says he will ask the Supreme Court to overturn the judgement.

He was speaking a day after two judges ruled that his wife should live with him, but separately from her in-laws.

Correspondents say if the Supreme Court upholds the ruling, the case will go down in legal history in India where women traditionally live with their husband's family after marriage.

Mr Ghose and his wife, Kakoli Das, married in 1994 and had a son in 1996.

Soon after, however, relations between Kakoli Das and her in-laws became strained.

Court order

When her husband refused to move out she sued him in a lower court, with the request that he be legally compelled to stay with her.

When the lower court turned down her request, she took the case to the High Court.

There Justice Ajoynath Roy and Justice Pradipto Roy said a wife had the right to live separately with her husband, and could refuse to live with his parents and relatives.

They ruled that Mr Ghose will now have to make the necessary arrangements so that his wife can live separately with him

Well this is a landmark judgement. tho i wish the supreme court upholds it. Aqua what do u say to this!!!!!
Posted by malvika at 9:23 PM |

My boss says with a lot of pride that he works till 1 every night and even works some on weekends. This was quite similar to what my previous boss used to say.
I wonder whether today it is the norm to focus only on work and make that the be all of your life. Have all of us lost our sense of fun of living life. isnt life much more beyond work. People dont seem to have time to take vacations and this they say with sense of pride. To me it just seems to be a sad life they are leading!!

Work is important but to an extent. I work to earn money so that i can use it to enjoy other things in life. I want to travel see places, go out with family for which i need money and so i need to work. This does not mean i dont have an ambition to achieve something. Yes i do want to have a sense of achievement in my professional life but then i am not so consumed by it that i forget that work is just one aspect of my life and there is lots more to enjoy. Clearly i feel the need to balance my personal and professional life. Both are important and i need to focus on them.

There is the guy i met ..an MBA . People considered him to be a loser since his batchmates were much ahead of him in terms of career. But when i spoke to him i realized that this never bothered him one bit. He was very clear with his priorities. He insisted on taking his vacation twice every year . The number of places he has travelled is amazing. Name it and he has done it - trkking, skiing, rafting, bungee jumping, kayaking etc. Ask him about his career and he says so what some guys become CEO's at 35, i might take longer..it does not matter i will anyways get there but while getting there i am not going to stop enjoying other pleasures in life!!!! I dont want any regrets at the age of 60 .
Posted by malvika at 2:42 AM |

Friday, September 12, 2003

The last one week has been full of the 9/11 tragedy. nobody can stop talking about it! television channels, magazines and newspapers and even people around keep referring to the great tragedy that happened on that day 2 years back.
It just makes me wonder why is it that there is so much focus on this one big event. I admit it was a tragic event wherein lots of people lost their lives for no fault of theirs. But then is this the only tragedy that is happening.

why dont people think about innocent lives lost in iraq as a reuslt of US imperialistic ambitions couched under destruction of terrorism. why is there no such hype around lives lost in afganistan.
forget all that we have reports on daily killings in kashmir. if we count the casualties there over the last 20 years it would be ten times as much. but we and by that i mean the world and the indians themselves have become immune to it..we just gloss over the news item as something that happens on a daily occurence. But when news on 9/11 or tragedy in america happens there are endless discussions on that.
Arent human lives important wherever they are lost!!!
Posted by malvika at 3:56 AM |

Wednesday, September 10, 2003

Today a conversation with a colleague about having a female boss made me think!!! (for a change i do do that). Its really surprising that i have never had a female boss. But from my experience of watching them from afar i realize that having a female boss is a slightly tricky situation. Women somehow have a strange relationship with other women. there is always an underlying sense of competition rivalry and judgement. One woman is constantly watching the other in terms of the clothes u wera, the car u drive, the shoes make up, the way to interact with others and is always evaluating you. Its truly difficult to establish a comfort zone. maybe i am wrong but then i have always found it easier to get along with men than women ..somehow with women bosses if the initial vibes are bad then they can get vindictive. but then the other fact is that in a male dominated set up its easier to bond with othere women. u establish a relationship based on empathy since its difficult to hang out with the guys most of the time.

I guess with a woman boss one always has to be on edge not knowing when things can sour and god help if the woman boss hates u....then its time find anothe job fast
Posted by malvika at 10:44 PM |

Sunday, September 07, 2003

I have been in chennai for over 6 months and I am ashamed to admit that I had not visited any of the nearby places tho i am a supposed travel freak!!! i guess when u r married ur freedom to do things gets curtailed. Anyway to rectify matters me and hubby decided to travel along east coast road. We had heard so much about it. Believe it was so dissappointing to get on to that road. I expected a six lane or atleast a 4 lane highway on the lines of the mumbai pune highway. The roads were as narrow as the city roads except i must add there were no potholes so the ride was comfortable.

As we went along this road , i was amazed to see the number of places that have come up. Road sid drive in restraurants were all along the way offering variety of cuisines tho i did not try any of them so cant say much of the dishes . There were so many places around to visit. We passed the VGP beach resorts promising ourselves one weekeend there sometime . Then there was the ZEE MGM dizzie world a theme park. Slightly ahead we saw signs of mahabalipuram and pondicherry. It was tempting to go all the way but the thought of office the next day for both of us and we decided to let that pass for another day.

Well we did not just see these places. we did visit one place which was called the Dakshin Chitra. This was a handicrafts place that recreated the traditions of south India. So you had real houses of kerala, Tamil nadu, Andhra pradesh and Karnataka.
Tamil nadu area had a real existing chettinad house with wooden pillars and areas of recreation, puja room. completely traditional. This was really beautiful and the concept of the coutyard giving the element of space was really amzing considering we all have to make do living in small flats.
There was an ctial weavers house re created. This was the house a silk weaver in kanjeepuram where all the expensive silk sarrers get woven This house was in stark constrast to the ikat weavers house in karnataka, bagalkote dist. The economic disparity was so obvious in the style and size and contents of the house.
The other bit that amazed me was the thatched house that exists in coastal andhra. It is amzing how a house like this can withstand storms and cyclones and provide shelter. apparently it does.
Then there were these little interesting stuff like parrot horoscope and palmistry which i definitely could not ignore and got done!!! nice to hear about nice things to happen in the future.Though it psyched me when they said i would have six children!!! that would be tough

there was also pot making and basket weaving but there was not much time for that. maybe next time.

While this does cater to the foreign audience i think it is really worth a visit for all of us esp those who always have lived in the city and never know how people in the villages live and their traditions and customs.

next visit would be mahabalipram or pondicherry hopefully soon enough!!!

Posted by malvika at 9:39 PM |