more hAAthi

Having successfully abused the ongoing cleartrip promo, we now have 3 of these at home:

Give it up for hAAthi branded mugs. Conceptualised by me, designed and executed by VC. And made available to us by the lovely people at cleartrip and zoomin :)

VC gets me to pose. Mostly because he wants to abuse his new lens. Yup, thats right. A NEW lens. And thats a whole new post in itself.

But I decide to catch him by surprise instead.

Clearly, Im tres happy with my hAAthi mugs.

good morning, haathi

this is how the weekend began. with much promise. of free time. of mindspace. of staring into the openness. of basking in the glory of a free weekend.

but thats not how things progressed as the day went along. the result: its 5 10 pm. i have just finished massively cleaning up. i dont think im done as yet, but im tired so im calling it a day. and i havent even showered yet. ugh.

Unfinished business, and then some..

The first month of the new year is about to come to an end. And my list of to-dos is still pending. Heck I haven’t even started making the list, let alone accomplishing things one by one. But maybe I can go easy on myself this one time, because its not entirely my doing. Its not my laziness and inertia. Its not my hectic schedule. Well its not only that alone. The past few weeks have been crazy busy. The days have passed almost as if in a whirlwind of time that I have just breezed through.

I haven’t started working out. I haven’t started cooking full throttle. I haven’t blogged as much as I wanted to. I haven’t sunk myself in my new book. I haven’t written as many letters as I would have liked to. I haven’t scoped my personal work like I promised myself I would.

But what I have done is:
1) Have a series of really long and busy days at work. Its picking up, Im almost afraid to admit. Because I have this nasty habit of giving things a nice good jinx just when the going is good.
2) Participated in the office cook out. Which I was convinced was some version of an organized and “pleasant” form of ragging. I was grouped with 3 boys who didn’t know a capsicum from an onion. So it was left to me and Ashish the faithful office chef to plan the meal, order the required ingredients and delegate efficiently so the job would be done in time to feed 50 hungry and ready-to-rag colleagues. Eventually it turned out to be a blast, with the boys pitching in enthusiastically and us preparing the entire meal ahead of time. With time on our hands, and enthu cutlets in our midst, we also put together a quick fruit salad! Bonus desserts, who doesn’t like those?
3) Travel to Bombay for Ajja’s 1st death anniversary, which we celebrated with a 3 day music/dance festival. Much music. One killer kathak recital by the man himself – Birju Maharaj. One awesome book on his life was released. And I came away rejuvenated.
4) Take an early morning flilght from Bombay to Bangalore for Dodda’s 13th day ceremonies. Yes, I lost my paternal granny 2 weeks ago and since I couldn’t make it in time for her funeral, I wanted to be there for the ceremonies. More family, more memories rushing back, lots of home food, and Bangalore – which always leaves me with mixed feelings.

So there. I was hoping I could spend my Saturday, the first free one in a while, blogging, reading and generally catching up with things I haven’t had any time to do. Instead, I cleaned up. Yes, my obsession is my own enemy in this respect. I ruin my time by choosing to clean up sometimes. But someone’s gotto do it!

done.

my family and the family im married into are poles apart.
theres. no. getting. around. that. fact.

and today, iv officially stopped trying to fit in.

busier than the busiest

recent developments have led me to think that VC believes he is more important than the prime minister of india. and that his job, work and daily routine at office has the potential to change the world.

lunch gets eaten. i come in to office. i leave office. the rest of the world revolves at its own pace. world events occur. and he is oblivious to it all.

its scary.

dont get me wrong, im all for concentrated focus and dedication. if youre not doing something with a 100% why do it at all? but does that imply losing track and all sight of your everyday whereabouts completely?

these are scary times im living through.

the story so far..

there's been a lull around here in the recent past. a deep seated lethargy has sneaked its way into my blog-life. i dont know if i attribute it to long days spent in front of the computer that make me not want to look at a screen when im home, or a general unsettled feeling in life (that translates into an unsettled state of mind, which makes blogging difficult), or the pure and utter truth: there isnt anything blog worthy thats happening in my life at the moment.

yes, life goes on. ever since work began it has pretty much been a series of days at work, chores to be done when home, nights of slumber that always feel like they end too soon, and its back to the grind again. the cycle of days has shortened. and i often dont realize how one day has ended, another began, and so on, until the whole week has passed me by, without so much as a moment to think about anything to myself. i must confess that things havent really settled down fully at work. i havent found my rhythm, and havent gotten into the swing of things. which is to say, i havent reached that state of utopia were everything seems peachy and i can confidently say, i love what i do. however, there has been a glimmer of hope. several glimmers, actually. which lead me to believe that the potential for things to settle and fall into place is greater than i know.

and so i wait, with patience.

i realized this weekend, that i cannot let routine control life. i think its time to get life to control the routine.

glimpses of the weekend

some weeks the week days can really claw through. the past week was one of them. it was painfully slow and tedious. and i for one, was glad when friday evening arrived. my weekends have become super precious. and i hang on to every moment and savour it like its never coming back. this weekend was spent cooking, cleaning, lazing and generally loving it. its funny..but the domesticity doesnt bother me one bit. i wonder where this side of me was hiding for 25 long years.

what did i do?

a lazy saturday
a home cooked lunch
the much needed afternooon siesta
new pieces of furniture to add to the home
chocolate fudge cookies, coffee and gossip
gin and tonic and the bigg boss finale
malai chicken marinades
a sunday morning filled with changing sheets, doing the laundry, tidying up and washing the dishes -- FUN :)
skewers, hot coals, madly fanning embers and assembling lunch
malai chicken, fresh lettuce salad, dill and butter carrots, fresh bread toasted on the bbq, coke
more chocolate fudge cookies and chai
a lazy evening
got gifted a new book that i cant wait to start reading
dinner at the river front restaurant at the marriot -- my first fancy meal in a while
a glass of rose
grilled snapper in butter garlic and basil -- D.I.V.I.N.I.T.Y in a plate
conversations and stupidity
ice cream to cure the remnants of the flu -- it works :S
sinking into bed, feeling oh so satisfied with the weekend gone by!

sleep-in-sundays

waking up earlier than planned, even though i remind myself to sleep in the previous night

hassling the husband with rather loud and overpowering love and affection, without the intention to wake him up, mind you

having to hear him complain and crib about how sunday is the one day he would like to sleep in, and promptly retort about sunday being the one day we should maximize and not waste in bed

he begs me not to be hyper, because its only 7 30

i say, wake up and make me chai

and he does

yeah :) i love sunday mornings.

summing up a painful few weeks

Today, I hit saturation. And there’s only one way to describe today. It was like a punishment. Okay not like a punishment. It was a punishment.

First: I had to sit in a different room, isolate myself from the din, just so I could get some semblance of work done and make my very cluttered and heavy plate that much lighter.

Second: I had to open the dreaded case study document for the millionth time. These case studies are going to be the death of me. I have looked at them for one entire month. And made no progress. ZILCH. NADA. Nothing.

Third: I actually enjoy writing case studies. There’s a joy in crafting them in a way that perfectly brings out just the right amount of information, value and insights. But this particular assignment is peculiar. It brings together an unclear brief, badly written raw material, inadequate time and the whammy: the project managers all important opinion. Thrust very roughly down my throat. And no, I don’t take well to being forced to think a certain way.

Fourth: Multiple iterations and constant back and forth in trying to get the piddly 150-word feature right was more than an ordeal. It was, to repeat the word that has sparked off this rant, a punishment. Between highlighting the insights I believe are important, the insights I think the client would like me to highlight (based on prior experience), and also coping with internal feedback, I have had just about enough. And I am ready to call it quits. I mean, a simple case study cannot be so hard to get right. Especially since Iv done so many of them before. And rather well. Or so I thought. Until today. And that brings me to the fifth and final point.

Fifth: I have come to the conclusion that perhaps Im not a good writer after all. Or maybe Im not cut out to be a writer at all. Being good at something comes later. One has to be able to do it first. Today has led me to believe I cant write.

And for someone that has been writing in some form or the other for as long as she can remember, that’s not an easy realization to digest. More so, if she has decided five years ago that this is what excites her most, and this is what she will make a career out of. More so if she has done similar kinds of writing and been appreciated for it, enough to believe that she can write. And she can write well.

So I find myself sitting here in the office, all alone in a room, trying to gather my thoughts. And I cannot recognize myself anymore. Im going over this post again and again, trying to think where is the Revati I know? The one who was blogging with a vengeance? The one who was writing letters all the time? The one who loved words and sentences and crafting them? The one who was self employed. As a writer, I might add.

Where has my confidence gone? And that thing called self esteem? It seems to have flown out the window too. Have I come here to have my confidence ripped to shreds and be made to feel like the joy of doing something you love can actually feel like a punishment sometimes? What about the 5 years I have been through then? I have been through a fewwwwww jobs. And when I say few like that, sense the sarcasm. I mean a lot of jobs. I have worked with several varying organizations, with people and eccentricities of all kinds. I have even worked in segments and on accounts of all kinds. And in the 5 years I have realized things about myself. I suck at creatively writing cheeky headlines. I suck at cracking campaigns. I suck at advertising writing. But I know what Im good at. I am good with content. I am good at writing content and managing it in a way that makes it sensible and coherent.

In my experimental years of jumping jobs and looking for the thing I loved, I have gone through these very same feelings I feel today. But with a difference. I didn’t know where my heart actually was. I didnt know my strengths. But today, I know. I know this is not for me. I didn’t come here to try my hand at something I knew I cannot do. I didn’t come here to be made to feel like I cant write just because a few people and a few accounts dont match my style of thinking and writing. And I most certainly didn’t come here to turn everyday into a punishment. I came here to find work that would challenge me, excite me and satisfy me. The work is challenging, yes. But is it exciting? Does it satisfy me? NO. Far from it actually.

So I have made up my mind. My life, my skills and my talent is far too precious to be wasted in endeavours that leave me feeling low on self confidence and self worth. As recently as 2 months ago, I was using my brains and my creative skills in helping people building educational websites, travel websites, sales brochures and industrial design books. And I loved it to bits. Whats better? I could work on my time and schedule and still get to do everything else that I have realized I love. I could cook. Work out. Go to the beach. Read. Watch TV. Sketch. Be a home maker. And I think I want that all back.

Am I deciding too soon? Perhaps. But Im going to stick this out till its meant to, and get through my days knowing that life has better plans for me. And Im going to let life take me there.

curing the bloggers block

Although Im suffering from bloggers block of elephantine proportions, I did manage to cook to make myself happy yesterday. And while I was at it, I posted the recipe on the food blog.

Something is better than nothing, I told myself.

point to ponder #78563

im sick. with a supremely blocked nose, an itch in the back of my throat and a slight fever.

so i took the day off from work. i figured a day of rest, sleep and general wind down might do me some good.

funnily though, i miss something about work.
the chai.

is it a sign that of all the things i do at work, the only thing i really miss on a day off, is the unending supply of a hot beverage?