Work Time !!!!

Now that I have already started working and spent a couple of weeks of initial jittery feeling in the workplace, now I guess I can put my experience in words!!! Almost everyone who heard that I was on board said to me , “welcome to the big bad corporate world and within no time you would be hating work “

Ok… Coming to the positive side of working…. Here every1 assumes that money is the biggest motivator , but I would like to inform that it not so in my case because my salary is like peanuts !!! its meager and miserably low on pay scale ! But the motivating factor is that I have managed to get a job with a real reputed firm in the RECESSIONED WORLD and that profile is what I always wanted… In HR its said one can benefit maximum by working in the mfg sector and should close his / her eyes to low salaries so I am doing exactly the same.

And the feeling of being some one important and at a responsible position soothes my ego or u can say boosts me … People call me madam and respect me not because of my family connections but because of my own self…. I get this feel good kinda feeling when I actually help in some small or big way when people get recruited…

I feel nice about the fact that I am independent and can very well take care of my whatever basic needs are.. Nothing fancy though possible!!! And I also get motivated by the fact that I dint have to settle for a Consultancy job… And that I got this job based purely on my merit….

There were 2500 applications for this job..i myself deleted and managed the mail box once I had joined the company and almost 50-60 females had been interviewed for this single vacancy… There were no contacts that I used to get in….

Now working has been a dilemma situation for me in a way… I get real tired at the end of a working day. I get that big time drained and dog tired feeling…morning 6 o clock to evening 7 o clock go off in office..After coming back there is cooking, cleaning untensils, washing clothes and such daily chores that need to be taken care of…. By 10-11pm I m in bed and get up again at 6 am !!! This schedule is on for 6 days a week…. Is this the life I wished for.. What exactly did I want.. because every1 is supposed to work…Right ??? I have the right qualifications and the competency to work so I am working…. !!!

And equally disturbing fact is that with time I am gonna get more and more busy…. This is what life is and probably this is why Elders always told us to enjoy college life…. Till then we had been absolutely carefree….

In work place you function according to the fancies of your seniors , life gets hectic …. But the point is, What would I do if I don’t work… Unfortunately till now I have not found a mid way b/w Absolute free time and 100% tight tiring schedule.

In the workplace can you really trust people and make good friends out of them ? I suppose that generally the answer to this question is no… Ofcourse exceptions can always exist and u can manage to get good pals if u r really lucky….

The best strategy I feel is to take everyday as it comes and not think deeply about anything… Even work pressure needs to be taken up in a way that it doesn’t effect your well being in a negative way… And with time one definitely gets coated with a new upper thick layer which makes us immune to small and big useless issues…..

For now I like walking down to my bus stop in the morning, Doing office work, And trying to cook new things everyday at night…. I really have no clue as to till when I am going to like this hectic life but then…. The attitude is DON’T KNOW, DON’T CARE !!!! When I ll be fed up of this, I will definitely find something better and more appealing to do with my life…. Till Then…. JAI HR PROFILE AND THANKS SONA SOMIC for giving me a wonderful opportunity to start my career !!!!

The other side of the coin... The flip side...

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all ...these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you.

And with that piece goes a lot of your life…memories, movies u went to together , plays you saw, places you ate and then one day once things are all over they come haunting back…every time that song plays , every time that movie shows, every time you pass that place where you used to dine…Cities and places.,..tunes and words….all related to that one person

BTW They didn't ask for that piece of you. They just did something dumb one day, like call you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness. It hurts. Its not a hurt you feel but more of a void -- a feeling of those times, those hugs gone and that path which you could have been taken left untouched. I don’t hate love. But I sure hate what it tends to do to people…

INVISIBLE PIPER WITH A MYSTERIOUS TUNE…..

Luck, serendipity, destiny… All these concepts didn’t really much to me previously… But The last 2 years definitely made a dramatic change in my attitude and implanted in me a strong faith in Destiny…. I firmly believe, now in the theory of AN INVISIBLE PIPER WITH A MYSTERIOUS TUNE…..Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.

Whatever happens to us is certainly pre destined, whatever happens is for the best and we cant stop anything from happening or make an event happen if its not meant for us… Certainly we all put in our best efforts but ultimately the results are just not there in our hands… I don’t want to sound like a lazy loser but this is what I feel is the truth of life in a nut shell… We are mere puppets or actors dancing to the tunes the mysterious tunes of an invisible piper….

Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.”

There are times when we know we are acting irrationally but just go on with it, as if it’s the best approach of handling a certain situation or acting in a particular manner… Later we might regret is another story altogether… That justifies the saying “VINASH KAALE VIPREET BUDDHHII !!”

I feel the number of smiles and tears are pre determined by an external force. Like we might be really happy in a situation and suddenly things turn around and we are no more smiling and similar can happen in case of rags to riches condition…. We as human beings give our best and try to extract the best out of given set of conditions….

Don’t we ask ourselves and GOD why a certain thing went so wrong when we never had any wrong intentions… It happens a lot of times.. And many of these experiences make us stronger. We emerge as a better person. In the short term definitely such setbacks hurt like hell but if we look at it from a long term perspective then they do help us indirectly by making us wiser, mature….

Like my TCS incident,.. For those who don’t know abt it…. I was given confirmation by TCS in nov 2008 that I was selected as HR MT.. I was happy beyond belief.. That was obvious.. And in an hour only they had given another news that I was not selected…They had had an internal meeting wer they decided to ultimately not take IN the fresher.. This experience made me stronger. Today when I am jobless I have this psychological, what u can say , belief in my own self that I have already faced a worse situation so this cant dissuade me. No one can chuck me out if I have still not made myself a part of their work force… Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.

And another fact is that we appreciate good things of life much more when we have been through the bad phase. Otherwise things would have been taken for granted. Now today when I get a job I will mot certainly enjoy the EMPLOYED feeling more than if I had been selected for a job from the campus in an UNRECSSIONED WORLD and had not faced any kind of hassles….

Lets say a person gets romantically involved with some one. Truly loves him/her.. gives his/her best… And then gets dumped for no apparent reason. Not to say the person will feel damn low.. Get high on the dejection quotient and loses confidence n stuff…But look at the positive aspect.. Such an experience makes one more careful, analytical in approach and obviously stronger from within…

I have no regrets in my life. I think that everything happens to you for a reason. The hard times that you go through build character, making you a much stronger person....

Raat lambi sahi,
Phir bhi yeh ek raat hai,
Subah ho jaayegi,
Sau baton ki baat hai,
Phir jaagegi yeh fizaa,
Phir dil ka ek raasta,
Le jaayega wahin tujhe,
Teri tay manzil jahan,
Sach to yeh hai ki hona hai yu,
To in aankhoin mein aansoo hai kyu?
Gum naa kar tu jo murjha gaye,
Phool khil jaayenge phir naye…

Kolkata food - BHALO ACCHE !!!!!

Necessity is the mother of all inventions… Well in my case it was not really an invention on my part, but yeah…Nonetheless it was like voyaging on an un charted territory !!! It is COOKING That I am talking about my dear friends!!!

Till Delhi I had no idea about cooking.. But Kolkata was a different ball game altogether… In my 1st PG The food was horrible…N yess…I mean it.. I remember the maid bringing our food from a different home (where the kitchen was functioning) full of rain water in dal and chawal during monsoons…It was such a disgusting sight…. It made my stomach feel weird and suddenly I could feel the cramps… Just the mere sight of it!

The only option left was to fend for ourself… So I decided to start cooking… The process started with buying a CLIX…It is a chhota potable gas cylinder and u don’t need any kind of connection for it… Then we friends bought all different kinds of masalas and other basic necessities!!!

And bingo … We had our own small kitchenette!!! From zero to what I now know has been quite a progress indeed… I know how to make Tea, coffee, Maggi, Pasta (The readymade ITC Sun feast one only!) , omelets, bread rolls, cheese sandwich, aloo sandwich, chicken sandwich, poha, a quick snack of crumbled bread with masala n veggies, Pizza, Aloo ki sabzi, paneer ki sabzi (with n without the curry), Chhole, Chane, aloo gobhi, khichdi (that’s my specialty) …..

My cooking adventures made me learn a lot through experimenting n all.. There were groceries to b bought, utensils to b cleaned and lot much to do…But then as friends tell me…"u r not at all a bad cook”… U do cook well !! And another friend attributed this success to the virtue of my being a female..Acc to him , "u r a girl.. Females are born with the innate quality to cook and all… Its there in your instinct " … Maybe…he was right in saying this…

Ok lets come to the food that I had in various places in Kolkata… To be true the food that I had bahar was not bad…it was infact good…

First of all I would like to talk about ITC HOTEL THE SONAR. 4 months of my summer internship in the HR deptt there was a GALA time for me as far as food is concerned. The everyday lunch there was a sumptuous affair. And the different kinds of chocolates and pastries that I tasted in the Hotel. The fresh fruits cake and the chocolate cake… During SIP I managed to put up quite a bit…And yaa the SUSHI !!! It was cooked by a chef flown in from Phillipines but unfortunately the HR deptt ppl could not appreciate the kind of raw taste of fish in Sushi…

Then there was some amazing SEA FOOD served By IIM C in the 3 day seminar held there…It had pomphrets and other stuff.

For typical North Indian fair of Naan, shahi paneer, malai kofta , butter chicken n tandoori chicken I would say Azad Hind, Rupanjali, Sanjha Chulha, Silver Chimney, Eats and treats provided some really nice food.

Now my aunty in the new PG… Her favorite seemed to b ALOO !!! All her special dishes had aloo.. Aloo Bhaja, Aloo Dum, Aloo Paratha, Aloo Sandwich, Aloo Chicken (the Sunday speciality !) n so on…. One aspect of her food worth mentioning here is her fishy activities. I liked just the fish fry … Her another fish was some slim fish cooked in its own shape..u had to take the whole fish on ur plate and eat it simultaneously removing its kaante !! The ORIYA AND BONG girls had amazing skills to do it which I lacked!!! Once aunty made special PRWON FRY…She asked me to go for it… I took a couple of them in my plate. I ate them but the next few days I saw its effect. The next 3-4 mornings I used to get up in the morning and puke.. Such was the effect of prown on my system. After that incident all my sympathies are with the pregnant females who suffer from morning sickness… God bless them all !!!

Special mention of CHAI, SAMOSA, DEEM TOAST (bread omelete), CUTLETS, LOOCHI BHAAJI, JHAL MURI that we had in every possible place... 7 number, 8 number, karunamoyee, near metro plaza, near park street, rajarhat road, near ITC sonar,City centre, the tea junction, wdc, KT..... after every class we had a cup of tea if nothing else !!! and Once we had a staggering unbelievable bill of 95 bucks in a CHAI SHOP near WDC !!!

Once all the friends went to Grub Clubs near Garia Hat… Awesome chicken dishes they served there. By the end of the dinner I felt to CHICKENED !!! Then there was this memorable ENGLISH BREAKFAST @ FLURRYS with Ritu and her XLRI friends group… I would suggest flurry’s breakfast as a must during one’s Kolkata stay… And the lip smacking street food and chats near Vardaan market….

The ARSALAN kebabs have their own specialty and will simply melt in your mouth…The RAHMANIA”s biriyani…. The Malgudi Days perfect DOSAS on CAMAC street…I also explored 4 food courts… In RDB adlabs, City centre , South City Mall and Howrah Rly Station… Good palatable food at reasonable prices…

Near our college we had Fingertips, n number of food stalls, mostly I used to have the Dosa near KT and the chhola paratha at times…Opium we generally went for drinks and their Crispy baby corns and Crispy chicken… After all they had an inviting 10% discount for ICFAI students on all food items n drinks !!! Chicken lollypop, steamed momos and chicken rolls in Karunamoyee were like routine evening snack when I felt too tired to cook after reaching PG after the day..

The other normal stuff that we had was in Dominos, Pizza hut, KFC, Mc Donalds, CCD etc…

One unique quality in Kolkata is that u can get good food even at small establishments n with ok ok hygiene… U don’t have to shell out a fortune for every meal !!

Now how can I not talk about SWEETS in Kolkata… Kolkata offers you some really sweet and nice sweets …Rosogullas, cham cham, malai mithai, sondesh in various varieties… The sweet shops are present almost everywhere and the Cake shops too… In the Bakery market it is MONGINIS with maximum market penetration… The outlets are not very huge but very comfortable and clean with moderately priced items.. One of my friends did his internship with Monginis.. He went to this particular outlet for his questionnaire session or something and noticed some flies/ insects in the glass cabinet having food.. He reported this to management and very prompt action was taken …

Now after talking so much about food I feel hungry and hope that the post had a similar effect on you too… Bon Appétit !!!!!