Happy New Year - 2016

Wishing you all a very very Happy New Year 2016.

May this new year bring fulfillment of all desires and dreams.

I was almost gone for 6 months from this blog, a lot happened in my household, I needed a break. Though, I have been tracking all my finances and other goals offline, I just not felt like updating anything here. *Hibernation* is my way of dealing with calamities.

Will update about my life, my tracking of goals for 2015 and my goals for 2016 in separate blog posts.

For now, let’s cheers that 2015 is finally over and a new year is here that brings so many new hopes with it.

Indian Thoughts (IT).

Happy New Year

I know I am 7 days late, but still wishing me and everybody else a very happy and prosperous 2015.

Happy New Year

I know I am 5 days late, but still wishing me and everybody else a very happy and prosperous 2014.

I am still working on my goals for 2014, will update them soon. :)

My Blessing - that kept me away from here

This is one of the reasons that kept me away from my blog from so long and probably will not let me being regular even in future. :)

Yes, I delivered a baby this August.

Life is not fair but you need to fight fairly

It’s easy to complain. It’s very easy to think that you are facing the biggest problems of life. But the fact is that I have never come across a single person in life who has no problem at all.

2011 has been a rough year, very rough year indeed. Not so much financially but emotionally and mentally. This has been a year of Murphy visits. I thanked Murphy for not visiting me throughout 2010 and I think that hurt his pride. He decided to be with me for a long time to come now. Between so many hospitals visits and all the bad NEWS from everywhere (and yes sprinkled with some good NEWS at times too), I started believing that I am having the toughest time anyone can ever have.

But then, I come across a guest post on Budgets are Sexy, one of my favorite blogs, by Ashley. To be very honest, I do read lots of posts but very rarely a post will compel me to read all the comments as well. It was one of those rare posts. Yes she is a very strong woman to go through such tough times when she was pregnant and I hope and pray that she never ever face any such problem again in life.

After reading what she went through, I felt blessed after long long time. I am so thankful that I always have food on table, that too of my own choice. I have clothes and well needed resting time as well. I can afford to leave my job for some time if situation demands it. I have money in bank so that even though I am away from family, I can or they can visit me, if health permits.

I am so thankful for her and J Money to host this post, because it gave me much needed motivation and hope to fight my current circumstances with more optimism. Thanks so much.

My First Lottery Win feels WOW!

Yes, you read it correctly. No I am not a gambling addict but as i have mentioned so many times I am jinxed ;)

Little background, before 26th November 2010, I had never ever won any lottery. I never won Tambola/Housie :(. In fact, I was so unlucky that I have never heard my name in any chit picking game. Once in my college, our lab seats were to be decided by picking up the slips and out of 40 students, I was the last one whose name slip never got picked and I had to take the last seat left :(

But not anymore. On 26th November, in our office party, I won in Tambola, not one but two prizes. One first five and then completing third row.

Do you wanna know how it felt, awesome, purely awesome. I am feeling so lucky again :)

Just wondering how some small things cam make you feel almost half of your age, and no I am not revealing mine :D

Bad service with such reputed names

I always wonder whether it’s only me who is so unfortunate when it comes to public dealing or is it about everyone and I am just more vocal then others?

Recently, I shifted to Hyderabad and decided to use Agarwal Packers and Movers for relocation. I heard lots of good things about them but my experience has been bad in short.

They promised to bring wooden frames for packing stuff like fridge and washing machine but they never got same on packing day. As a result my refrigerator got so many scratches. :(

Also, while packing Gas Stove + empty cylinder, they told me that no need to enter Cylinder separately as it is part of Gas Stove. When I received my stuff, Cylinder is missing now they give me excuses like it is not mentioned in the list. Customer care is not at all helpful.

I would never ever recommend any one to use Agarwal Packers and Movers. They promise big but deliver NILL.

And then our good old LIC. I am jinxed for sure. :(

My DH wanted to get term insurance from LIC, a good principal of PF right. I couldn't find even a single agent ready to do that. Even the online site, PolicyBazaar cheated, took the money, and never gave the policy. Finally, one agent agreed to make a term policy but after the cheque got cleared he forced my DH to first buy a huge ULIP through him and then only he will process term papers. Literal blackmailing.

No wonders I HATE LIC. :(

My personal rants, genuine feedback on the kind of service I receive.

Little Update on my end

My posting here became very sparse because I was very unhappy with my job and redirected all my energies to doing something about it.

Few months back I got an offer from some org in another city but couldn't join it because of personal reasons.

My DH and me, mutually, decided that we both wanna change our jobs and hence started hunt once again. He got a job in Hyderabad and finally I also got one there. So we are relocating to Hyderabad.

So, I am sure i'll be able to resume my thoughts on money here once my relocation is done. Its just few more days to go and I am really reverse counting them.

Any packing/relocating tips from any of you guys? Please do let me know.

Independence Day

Happy Independence Day to all of us.

I love this day more because its also my Mom's birthday.
Happy bday mama.. and thanks for spending your best years on my worst years. :)

Enjoy the day off :)

This also happens sometimes...

Getting rich is everybody's dream, at least, that can be general statement which applies to 50% of the population on this earth. I am not against anybody's dream and effort to become rich. What I am totally against is when people push me in their get-rich-quick-scheme-with-little-work. Yes, I am very skeptical of all these ideas and am totally uninterested in becoming members of anything like Amway, Oriflamme etc.

Last weekend, couple of my DH's friends were supposed to visit us. They brought some more 3 people along with them. My DH's friend decided to keep silent and one of the 3 strangers started talking to us. He took out an A4 sheet and pen from his bag and here was how our conversation went:

Stranger#1: What you all do?
DH: We both are engineers.
Stranger#1: Why do you work?
DH: To earn money.
Me: (Interrupted them to add) and to keep ourselves busy and do what I love a lot, programming.
Stranger#1: (looking towards me) Wow. That's unheard of. I myself work in same field for last 12 years and he (stranger#2) is in this field from last 18 years in XYZ Company (a very big company).
Me: Great. It's nice to meet you all.
Stranger#1: So, imagine what you will do if you are told to retire today.
Me: (looking little confused) and that means?
Stranger#1: If you get some 1-2 crore rupee today and you get some monthly income throughout your further life without your current job what will you do?
DH: Don't know.
Me: (DH is already looking at me, means ball is in my court) Will probably still go to my job because I love my work if nothing else there.
Stranger#1: (Little surprised) you have no dreams or goals in your life?
DH: We do have and we are already living our dream life kind of. (I was elated hearing this.)
Stranger#1: Would you still like to work.
DH: Yes, may be then I'll be doing more of farming, probably apple farming somewhere.
Stranger#1: Wow, I would also like to do farming after retirement. (Turning to me now) So, what will you do then?
Me: Nothing extra ordinary. Pretty much the same what I am doing now.
Stranger#1: (More surprised) so what do you do now with your money.
Me: Nothing. My DH's salary is sufficient for two of us. Mine is used for extravagant things. That's all.
Stranger#1: (Thinking that he is not going anywhere with me) won’t you like to go on shopping spree or jewellery collection if given lots of money?
Me: No. I am very much happy with what I have and what I can buy today.
Stranger#1: I am shocked. You are the first woman who is saying that she is not interested in jewellery and shopping. (Well please note that I never said that. All I said that I am content with what I have.)
Stranger#2: I am shocked too. My wife last month demanded Rs.40 Lakhs bangles from me.
Me: (Now I am shocked) Good. But I am not interested in them.
Stranger#1: (giving disgusting look to my house) is this your dream home?
Me: Yes very much.
Stranger#1: I am surprised. I have never seen a more content person then you in my life. All the credit goes to you (to my DH).
Me: (Just smiled)
Stranger#1: (To my DH now) so do you like travelling?
DH: Yes.
Stranger#1: Where will you go travelling when you will have money?
DH: We both love exploring India. We will visit rest of the places that we have still not visited.
Stranger#1: Why India. That's the problem. We all learn to dream small. You don't want to go anywhere outside India?
DH: Yes probably once to Vancouver again because I have studied there.
Stranger#1: See, and we have a scheme where this all will be possible in just
few years with little work.

Do I need to tell you that I hated him and his ideas! I absolutely love my house. I live in one of the posh most areas of my city. I drive the car that I love. I travel in India because we both are crazy to explore India and let me tell you visiting places like Kashmir, Sikkim, Kerala cost you more money then traveling is so called destinations like Malaysia, Thailand etc.

He approached us all wrong. He must have come across those people who think that their life sucks and that more money will make them happy. Not me at least. By demeaning the things that I absolutely love he is never going to get what he wanted. I am never going to join what ever quick-rich scheme he has.

I don't know but I can't stop thinking bad about that day and those people.
What do you feel. Am I too skeptical for these kind of people or were they actually so annoying?

suggest something.. me confused

I was reading an article on anger management only just. It defined anger as Anger is "an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation to intense fury and rage" according to Charles Spielberger, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger. Nice article I must say.

But after finishing it, I was pondering over plethora of thoughts that were crossing my mind at that time, varying from why I am reading such an article to why generally people get angry. Again the words from same article “Anger can be caused by both external and internal events. You could be angry at a specific person (Such as a coworker or supervisor) or event (a traffic jam, a canceled flight), or your anger could be caused by worrying or brooding about your personal problems. Memories of traumatic or enraging events can also trigger angry feelings.” I am sorry Dr, I am a naïve and not an connoisseur like you, hence if I put same in my simple words it will be ‘non-fulfillment of expectation leads to frustration and that frustration over the period of time is what comes out as anger’

So here I come again, at one of my favorite topic to talk about, expectations. Expectations comes from your own actions, it’s basically law of action reaction that we all studied (not me actually, I hated physics then and now I almost dread it :( ) in physics in high schools. Your mind is programmed to expect some reaction after every action you have taken. Reaction can be from a person, from event, from environment and all. Now, it’s a human brain and is capable of flying to the unseen heights. So, for every action, it has already chosen a suitable reaction. Of course, that choice is not the random one or the most favorable one, but basically involves complex dynamic of relationships, circumstances, promises, and what not. Now, when the reaction comes from the second party and it doesn’t matches to what you expected, it hurts. It hurts, not because reaction is different, but also because that means dynamics, complex dynamics involved behind the expectation, proved to be wrong some where.

So, what do you say, next time when you are angry, rather then out bursting in rage (my favorite way though :p ) sit and analyze the dynamics and see where it went wrong. HA. After writing this article, at least I am feeling much better. No more angry at all. :lol:

Cheers and remember, (one of my all time favorite quotation) “Silence is the hardest argument to refute.” And please, also do remember to give and expect a lot in the relationship because that is what makes the relationship stronger. Just because some of the relationships didn’t deserved so much giving, doesn’t mean the approach is wrong at the first place. Choose relationships judiously, not the expectations.

My All Jobs So Far

My Honest CV
Without revealing my exact age, I can tell that I have lived almost one-third of my life and worked at quite a places in different roles with different responsibilities.

• My first job was not a formal job. Rather it was an attempt to earn my pocket money to support myself while graduation.


• I worked as a trainee in one of the S/W companies (don't wanna name it) and earned nothing there. That was way back in 2002, dot com bubble bust era.


• Later I joined a BPO (formerly Daksh, and now IBM Daksh) and worked there as Insurance Claim Processor for 9 months.


• I left job at BPO to pursue my PG and worked side by side as TA in my college.


• After college moved to work in RCom, which I left in 2 months. Thanks GOD!


• And now here I am, working in my current office for last 5 years.

It's been a long and satisfactory journey so far. :)

How about you? How many jobs you had so far?

career vs job

While browsing, I read some article on Job vs. Career. The article differentiated the two of them as: A job is something you do simply to earn money; a career is a series of connected employment opportunities. A job has minimal impact on your future work life, while a career provides experience and learning to fuel your future. A job offers few networking opportunities, but a career is loaded with them. When you work at a job, you should do the minimum without annoying the boss. When you’re in a career, you should go the extra mile, doing tasks beyond your minimum job description.

With all the due respect to the proficient who have written this, I don’t agree with most of it. Can you discriminate a job from a career? Fine you can! I am an engineer by occupation. When I passed my college, industry was in decline so I joined a BPO for a part time job. Working as insurance claim processors was indeed my job, but not a career. A job because I was sure I was here for short term and not long term. So, basically, what I understood from above words is, Job is short term and Career is long term.

My job was undoubtedly not a humdinger for my career, but I used to work very hard, scarcely ever taking my breaks, always looking further for the ways to perk up my effectiveness. And not to reveal, I really excelled in my job, got good hikes and promotions.

So a palpable query that comes to my mind, why I worked so hard? That was a job after all and not career! I think the rationale is not short term vs. long term, but relates more with your standards of life that you your self define for yourself.

Consider it this way! Look at the value you add against the hours you endow at any place. Be it your job or career, you giving it some X hours of your existence every day. If you are not content with it, are you not slaying that part of your life too? Whatever you do and how you do basically reveal how passionate you are in your life and has nothing to do with short term or long term goals. Life is not about what you accomplish at the conclusion of 10 or 20 years, it’s after all how you expend those years.

It’s all in outlook towards the life. You can either wait for holi to get colors and diwali to get light or else you can make every day holi and diwali by adding colors and light in them everyday. It’s all your opinion, and all your life at the end of the day. Happiness, contentment, pleasure, performance is all part of you and not short term and long term goals. So you cannot decide to not give something your best because that’s merely a job for you, can you?

Keep Smiling. :)

vicious circle

It says ‘life is to move on’ and I decided to move on and made new mistakes and it again told me to move on and I did and made new mistakes...

Life is a vicious circle, you do few things, some will be good from one outlook, some will be not so good, and some will be bad. You will realize your gaffe, your constraints and will try to move on. To move on, you will make more picks, followed by more actions. Again, few of them will be good, few not and life becomes a vicious circle.

No matter what you do, what you choose, you will have grudges, grievances, guilt’s, tears and smiles. But you keep moving on as it says that life is to move on.

Only way I can see to actually move on in life is not and never to look back in life. No matter what all says, even those who used to matter most at some time, don’t look back, as it also says that ‘don’t look back, because that is not the direction you are traveling in.’ In life, 100 people you will meet will not behave in a way you expected them to and similarly you can not behave in a way 100 others expect you from.

No matter what anyone claims, no one can ever completely understand your circumstances and what you went through. So, a learning hard learnt, never stop to or try to explain same to anyone. That will increase fault and stews and will make moving on difficult.

I said in one of my blogs that ‘expect and give a lot in any relationship, because that’s what makes a relationship stronger’, but one more conclusion I have drawn is, as soon as a relationship ends, get rid of all expectations from it. That is the true way to move on.

So cheer up and move on as it says ‘life is to move on’.

Last to say, 'life can be tough, circumstances can be tougher, keep on living with dignity, because there is no other way to live the life.’

Kurukshetra Trip - Some Memories

I promised to post my kurukshetra trip photographs but delayed it for so long.
Here are some of the best moments captured in these beautiful photogarphs.


This one is some kund in kurukshetra (I am sorry but i have really forgotten its name:-()


This one is my favourite favourite of all.


This is shekh chilli's makbra, an awesome place to visit.


Well what can I say about this, "Hare Krishna Hare Ram"


From the place where lord krishna delivered Geeta Updesh.

I hope you liked them.

my car music system got broken

Today morning at around 6'O clock somebody rang my door bell.
Irritated to be woken up so early, i came to knew that someone has broken my new car's back window pane to steal my music system. :(

Things broken:

1) Window Pane
2) AC duct
3) Music system
4) Indicators were also not working in the morning.

How I feel, terrible. :(
My DH is now at service station to get the car repaired.
And I am waiting for the bill.

Unexpected expenses just pop up unexpectedly and in sad sad way.

Update

I was on vacation for a week to dharamsala.
Reason for all the silence and one junk post here. :)
will update you all soon.

trying........ to move on

When I was in sixth standard, I read in my science textbook a statement, which meant a definite one-mark question at that time. "Only those creatures survive who can adapt themselves to the environment". But never until I crossed my teens, I felt that it’s much more then that. I, as a human being, have done the same so many times in my life. When I attended college, I changed my dressing style, studying style, to suit better to the so-called new life of College. Then moving forward did same once again for my Post Graduation, first job, second job and so on.

May be I am generalizing, but I feel that in order to survive, we all do the same; change ourselves as per the new environment. In the process of survival, we meet many other humans. We tend to trust them and they tend to trust us. This mutual trust creates a bond between two humans that we conveniently name as Friendship.

But then humans are not perfect and so cannot be that bond. You tend to trust wrong people or its other way around. Few of them will behave in a way that you don’t expect them to behave in. You conveniently term them as wrong people! But if they were wrong, then how come you are hurt by what they have done! Reason being they were correct in their own survival circle, but probably it’s you who had wrong expectations from them!

So next time, if some one does a wrong to me, rather then trying to forgive them, I’ll try to forgive myself for expecting wrong from right people and hurting myself.

May be, this will improve my survival cycle. :)

missing missing

I am having something called writer block.
Just not feeling right now to do anything because of all the confusion in my life.
Hopefully i'll be fine and back in 2-3 days.

I am so so confused :(

I am confused :(

Ok, here is the story, this time mine, not a fiction one as in here.

I am not happy in my current job. I am working at this place for almost five years now; to be precise I will be completing 5 years in this August. I have got bad hike from last two years, not because I didn't performed, but because of low dollar cost one year, and recession the other year. Even this year picture is very gloomy. The division where I used to work, the work that I used to love, has been sold off last year. Almost all of us had been absorbed somewhere else in my company, I must confess a very genuine effort on their part, and they could have given us pink slip. I got moved in last mid-November. I do not like my new work. I hate it so so much. Everyday when I get up in the morning I feel like bunking my office. :(

Sad story, right? I made up my mind that I had to do something about all this. I started giving interviews and now I got an offer. This is second offer that I had got this time around. First one was almost OK other then they were calling me for almost same salary I am getting now. I refused without a blink.

Now, today I got another offer. They are again offering me almost same salary plus involve relocation. They are, yes, offering me a promotion, something that I don't see anywhere in my near future in my current company. They have the work that I want to do, I hope so.

Lots of things point out that this offer is bad and I should reject it too, but some part of me says that I should take it. Situation is something like, here it’s sure bad and there it's possible to be bad. :(

I am not sure what shall I do? I think I need to weigh in lots of things and do lots of calculation and brainstorming before I can come to some conclusion. Oh GOD, please guide me. Please.

I can't promise you that I'll do what you will suggest, but if you understand my dilemmas please feel free to drop some lines, to motivate me, to guide me, something.