Congratulations

I just realized that I have completed 150 posts on my personal blog. In my view this is a great achievement on my part as I have not lost the momentum and have made a point to write some or other crap in this place. I have already missed congratulating my self for 1 year of my blog, so I thought I will congratulate my self with this post for both completion of the year and 150 posts :-)

Birthdays of the week

Surya - 1st June (My Engg Classmate)
Manasa - 1st June (My Cousin)
Balaji - 3rd June (My Friend's Cousin)
Jemima - 3rd June (My GTL Colleague)
Rajesh - 3rd June (My Engg Classmate)
Ravindra - 4th June (My CA Colleague)
Rohit - 6th June (My CA Colleague)

Many many happy returns of the day guys.

My view on "Life after marriage"

Hmmm this is a common discussion which comes between friends when somebody is recently married. There is a saying in hindi "shaddi ka laddu khaye tho pachthavoge, na khaye tho bhi pachthavoge". In recent times I have been pestered with this question lot of times by many of my friends.

Before getting married any couple would think a lot about their partners and how they would spend the rest of the life. Everybody would think that they would not repeat the mistakes other couples are doing. They would have already seen so many couples including their own parents. Both the partners would write a huge list of do and don'ts and would think of sticking to it for rest of their lives. But do they really stick to it?

In my view after marriage many couples unknowingly will definitely repeat the same mistakes that are there in the list prepared by them. Its been ages that people have been trying hard to describe the life after marriage and each has their own perspective and there is no general way of describing it.

Popular picture we see for life after marriage

In order to avoid such mistakes or fights or issues between the couples they should be mature enough to understand their roles and responsibilities before getting married. Also they should be in a position to appreciate the likes and dislikes of each other. On a lighter note I hope there was a certification exam which a person should pass to understand if he or she is ready to get married.

Our parents are always there to guide us and make us understand the responsibility of marriage and what marriage is all about. Both the wife and husband should understand their responsibilities as a spouse and soul mate before the marriage and get prepared for it and live to the commitments and then begin new life. Otherwise life is more like a burden with petty issues and fights and finger pointing at each other.

Finally I would stop this post with this quote which I have read some where. "The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together."

Does being apart make heart grow fonder?

This post is actually in view of partners who recently got married, young and ambitious but both are miles apart. So does this physical and emotional separation signals a problem marriage? Right now I have many of my friends and cousins who are doing jobs being at different locations. Why friends and cousins, I am myself a victim of this.

In my view this could be a tough situation to handle and it would be one of the top ranked in stress factors for marriage. But still in this competitive world many couples have to endure and embrace separation positively before they can somehow set up home together. This is just not only in IT that I have seen but also in government jobs where husband and wife work in different departments and get different postings. Everybody in this situation struggle to move authorities for a common posting, which even Swetha is doing. We have been seeing that the phenomenon of the absent spouse does affect many marriages. It could be an IT job or a Govt job or a Merchant Navy or Military, everywhere we see people encountering this situation.

I am married and I had to leave my wife on the 7th day after marriage. The rituals were on until the last minute and we hardly had the time to meet up. In fact we could not enjoy our engagement together as I was in Singapore during that time. Ever since our marriage got settled for 4 months we directly met during the week of the marriage and then it was 7 days of togetherness. During this time also we were surrounded by people most of the times. There was no honeymoon nor did we go anywhere to spend sometime. I am sure Swetha would have some questions in her mind like - was there a true celebration within me? was I really happy to be married to my dream man at that point of time?

Though it was a matter of just two months when Swetha visited Singapore for 15 days, I found it so difficult. Now again its been 2 more months that we are separated. After you have lived together, any absence is really hard to bear. I can say that it would be more difficult for the girl than the boy. Spouse’s absence after marriage is different from being far from her before marriage. While love letters and phone calls can console you and keep you going when you are engaged, you really miss the person you are married to much more deeply. I felt that happening with Swetha more than me.

As Swetha is still staying with my parents I don't think the I will ever come across the following situation. A physical absence would also affect while taking the responsibility and commitment which is the next stage for marriage. Let it be paying the bills to grooming the children. It is hard for any couple to plan and conceive a child if they are meeting only once in a few months. I don't think anybody would plan for a child when wife is alone and leave the whole difficulty of pregnancy and parenting all by herself. If husband is absent for long periods then wife becomes so self-sufficient and independent that she will be having problems re-adjusting to the husband as the ‘head of the house’ and do the things in his way. At the same time the boy who has been planning many things for the family would definitely want the things to go according to him.

Finally I would say that it is true that absence can make the heart grow fonder. Once we miss the person we love
we miss the presence which makes lot of difference
know about the relation's endearing qualities
remember all the things said and did together
All these things are bound to have an impact on us. This would make us think of our partner and we start appreciating each other for all those missed moments.
But at the same time absence can also weaken the bonds of marriage or relationship, by the challenges it throws in our paths. Much maturity and a genuine love and commitment towards our partners is needed to face such challenges.

Working for the Weekend

Everyday I get the work assigned by my friend and lead Nagaraj. This Wednesday while I was in the train and going home I got a call from my manager.

Phone rang Tring Tring ..

The screen showed my manager's name who never call me directly as things come through Nagaraj. I was just wondering what it could be and why he is calling me directly.

I picked up the phone and following was the conversation.

I: Hello
Mgr: Hi Sudheendra .. This is P******

I: Hi P****** .. Tell me
Mgr: This weekend we have a shut down at ORL building can you pls come and do a restart of the system and check the BO application if it is working fine on all the environments.

Now what else can I say when he asks me directly other than saying Yes. I always wanted to say no but then as its just checking the system for 30 mins so I said OK.

I: Ok P******, I shall do it thats ok ..
Mgr: Thanks, bye.


Today, I came to office at 3PM in the afternoon thinking that I will leave by 3.30PM.

But then now the time is 6PM and nothing is working till now. I guess I will have to wait for more 2 hours for doing this. There is nothing that I can do. I will just have to sit idle until the servers are up. Hope I will get a comp off for this which I can use when Swetha will be here.

Anyways atleast you guys have fun on a weekend rather than wasting time at office like this.

Reasons to Smile

I love finding pleasure in simple things. It doesn't take a lot for me to experience joy and happiness. Here's just a list of a few simple things that can bring a smile to my face.

A smile from a stranger

A warm hug from loved ones

A casual e-mail from a friend saying hi

A melodious song from an old movie

A walk in the sun

When I find a new wallpaper of Katrina

Chocolates anytime

Having a cool drink along with Biryani

Sleeping after a heavy meal

Watching movies for the whole day with out any tensions

Talking to my wife

Holding a small baby

Hearing a child's sweet laugh or a watching a child's sweet act

Sleeping well after a long day at work

A warm shower on a cold morning

Opening the windows and letting the outside in

Completing a good workout

Blogging

I could go on and on, but I'll let you add your own smiling moments to the list. Don't be shy. Jump on into the conversation and give us all one more reason to smile :)

Busy Life

Last three weeks it was flurry of activities as there were many things happening in my life.

The project deadline is very near and none of the requirements is clear and hence there is a huge tension in my work life.

At the same time at the home front I have to look for a new house as Swetha will be here next month. I have seen houses almost everyday for the past 2 weeks. Also have to manage my finances as I have to pay my debts and have to get ready with a huge amount of 4000 dollars for the house.

I'm definitely ready for a break. This June I am going to Hyderabad and this should act as a good break for me.

There's always so much to do and so little time. I'm struggling to find the time to even sleep and eat properly. In the past I would have just relied on fast food to carry me through. But now since I am doing work out I just want to cut down all my extra calories that come from these fast foods.

Do I really care?

For the past 1 week there have been so many incidents going around the world.

Congress won the elections in state and central elections. So do I really care? I am in Singapore and I never understood politics.

Deccan Chargers have almost booked their seat in Semis in the IPL. So do I really care? Here none of the native players are performing and hence its a waste to support the team from where I am.

Prabhakaran died. But tamilnet.com says he is alive. So do I really care? No. I am not sure why LTTE is formed and I dont know what prabhakaran is upto now a days.

Stock market was up 17% in a single day. People say its just a speculation and it will go down. So do I really care? Yes. Because of this speculation the rupee strengthened and the dollar value reduced which is actually bad for all the people who send money to India.

Kick movie is a hit. So do I really care? Yes as I am very much interested in movies.

My favorite Katrina was in Singapore. So do I really care? No because I was too busy to go and see her at the shooting of the film.

Now finally you may say that I have very less general knowledge and hence I dont care about any of the current affairs happening round the world.

Yes, as a common man for me most important in a week is how my company is doing? Are they firing anybody? How is project going on? Am I getting the solutions to my issues? etc. This is not selfish, but then this is for my bread and butter and if time permits then I try to learn about the happenings around the world but dont really have time to care about any of these.

My First Experience with Automatic Car

Since my childhood I have always dreamed of going abroad and settling down. Once I came to Singapore I came to know how difficult it would be to stay away from home. Anyways thats not the crux of this topic. I have always thought of US and not of any other country. This is because of the flexibility to buy and drive a car or a super bike. But in Singapore buying a car is totally out of scope and hence I have never driven an automatic car even after coming here.

At last this weekend when we went to Kota Kinabalu Malaysia, we rented an automatic Proton car which came as a blessing for our commuting in KK. We rented the car in the name of Surya as he was the only guy who got the license. Even though me and Nagaraj did not have our license, we did not miss the chance to drive there.

Thats me with Proton at KK Airport

My first ride with that car was a bit embarrassing as I did not understand what is what. Finally after couple of minutes I could figure out that there is something called Drive mode and we need not change any gears. I was a bit surprised not to see the clutch and then figured out what actually acts as a clutch. Leaving these basics apart, when we went into the petrol pump, I did not understand how to fill ourselves. Other than all these embarrassing moments I was not accustomed to the changing lanes concept also.

But now I am confident of driving any where and am looking forward to drive in my next trip.

Stress Free Long weekend

I had a great time this weekend at Kota Kinabalu. It was just like I was retired for 3 days and was away from all the stress and tensions in the world. Even though I enjoyed the trek, I am right now struggling with body pains of a strainful trek. From tomorrow I have to get back to work and I am not sure how soon I can cope up with this.

Conquered Mt. Kinabalu - 4095 Mts