Why have NOT been blogging off late - Excuse#1

The last time I sat to scribble a new post on the blog was around a shameful 6 months ago. It is giving me pangs of embarrassment to remember the time period when I last posted. In the meanwhile, I have been seeing many of my friends/co-bloggers racing past ahead of me in the cyber-diary. I have been reading most of them and in a sense trying to derive some inspiration to keep up pace with them. A few of the bloggers had posted many a thing from a big personal loss ;concocted romantic utopian fables to lessons on ethics/morality to inability to strike a work-life balance to corporate fundas. These varied topics have made me sit and think, as to how and why am I not squiggling anything on the blog. A RCA(you better get acquainted with acronyms) made me come to the conclusion that, off late so many things have been happening at my end so fast added to the fact that I have been becoming a lazy sloth, so Iam neglecting this part. Excuse me for the sad description strewn with lame excuses. However, with the heralding of the new year 2010, I have vowed to write more often. By the way, it would give me some pleasure and some pain in describing the happenings of the past 6 months . Please bear with me when I flesh out some of them in vivid detail:

Come August 2009 : By the end of july/start of Aug, I was in the rush to make my first trip to the land of $$$. Though I was happy for having got the opportunity to visit US after slogging off my derriere for 3.5 years in the company, i was double minded of the timing. The dilemma arouse from the fact that though at a professional level I would be getting chance to move ahead(or rather in line with the IT herd) it would mean a delay over some imminent personal affairs. As is always my tendency, I figure out the devil in the closet only after I start cleaning up the mess. The onsite opportunity presented variety of pros and cons for me. However, as always happens with me, iam always on the edge of the cliff ready to be gently scrubbed off by the (allegedly)‘feather-touch’ actions of people around me. The whole exercise of the US trip was conducted in such a jiffy that, at one moment I was spreading my legs in front of the travel desk guys to get me Visa stamped , the other I was screaming in the parking lot over the guards to let my bike out of the parking area ; then I was shuttling between the two most uselessly separated office buildings within the same city – a distance of just 20 kms ; then I was made to realize at the 11th hour that US guys do not accept the standart Indian Passport size photos, instead they have a special specification, the studio lady was so rapt in her attention on the ongoing street-fight between two fellows that my call to her was not enough to distract her. I had to make my voice more of a baritone to grab her attention. One set of fotos never come out good for me, so a second shot and a third shot were taken. I snatched my fotos from her and ran away to meet the traveldesk czars who call the shots on who would travel easily and who would have to make a fight at every instance. Then the Visa interview dates were soon becoming the latest talk of the day. It is precisely at such moments of personal despair that rumour mills start to spread news about facing the most unprecedented of circumstances which had to erupt at the exact moment when I ventured out to work. Chief among them were – US Consulate has stopped giving dates for Visa interviews ; The Consulate building is undergoing some reconstruction work hence no dates would be made available till August end; For the IT MNC’s Obama has created more road-blocks than the roads of Pune thereby actively filtering out people rather than letting foreigners into the US ; Swine flu is catching up fast in India and hence US would not allow anyone entry into the US without a certificate from the highest medical authority(Governer/CM/PM/President of India or the CJI??). More the number of mouths more the number of ‘news’. Amidst all such ruckus , I braved to get the dates and schedule my trip to the US Consulate in Mumbai along with dad. The cab driver was driving us nuts with his superlative Ferrari-driving-skills all to be guinea-pig-tested on us. Somehow the Visa interview lasted for about 3 minutes – the lady at the other side of the table was from Florida and my petition mentioned as the same state. She was pretty too, and with a blink of the eye she stamped my petition. I too in my usual suave manner passed on a smirk towards her. Our ‘nain-matakka’ went on for a minute and as it is 100000 other things were already running up my mind. Then the bomb exploded, my stamped passport would reach the office only the next day. Viola, and my ticket for the US was the next day evening!! My dad often says, I end up making things difficult, worse even more, things start becoming difficult when Raj enters the picture. Now I all of a sudden could hear chimes ringing( I somehow felt the pain within my body as to which organ was being used to sound the chimes). No amount of self-sympathy was enough to make the skinny guy convinced that I need it today itself. Of course he meets hundreds of such hopefuls daily, so expecting him to make peace with me was obviously too much. But then we Indians, when do we lose hope. We have the uncanny ability to flight to the last straw even when we see all the shutters of the movie theaters being closed due to ticket unavailabilty , as if we would be ready to stand and watch the movie inside the hall. So was I in all true Indian spirit requesting the fellow to consider my case and issue the visa stamped passport the same day. These Americans have a way of informing upfront, without beating around the bush, the way we Indians are trained to speak and hear any piece of news. Me and dad returned to Pune to start the packing for the possible next day packing for the US trip. The cab driver was denying us the basic necessity of lunch for the day on the argument that , he would air-drop us in Pune in another couple of hours. Dad had to jump into the fray to ask him to stop for lunch. The sumptuous meal was not going in as the fear of not getting the passport for travel was lurking in my perennially disgruntled mind. Without the passport , I would not get the tickets , without tickets I would not get the travel insurance and without the insurance there is only one way of travelling to the US – dead meat form!!! Returning to pune , I had started packing and unpacking all the stuff in the house in search for the perfect baggages for the trip. The very moment I start searching for a thing, it starts following Murphy’s law – it gets hidden into such black-hole like places in the house, that I can never find them. The normally useless stuff like suitcases, were now becoming objects of my desire. Not able to find them , no time to go out and purchase no friends come to rescue , mom starts lecturing on the virtues of leading a well-planned life , ravi absent in his office , office formalities incomplete – NOT a single thing was going good and nothing gave even the slightest of illusion that I would be in a position to travel the next day. All objects – living and non-living, were speaking to me announcing the same message – YOU ARE GOING NOWHERE tomorrow!!! Life is tough , its tougher when you are stuck in shit !!! Somehow , the night passed off un-eventful, with 60% of packing done. The next morning, Iam struck by lightening that I do not have enough of inner-wear clothes – alas, without them I would be doomed. Pune central – rushed to the place and bought about a dozen of them, some single coloured, some multi-coloured and some oddest of color combinations, however , who in this world would be interested in seeing ‘what lies beneath’. To the thankful efficiency of our courier syndicates , my passport which was supposed ot be delivered to my office in the morning, I was tracking minute-by-minute about the status of the delivery. Finally, the sun dawned on those guys and it was delivered in the noon 2:30 PM. I started off to Mumbai in exactly 37 minutes after this momentous event. Mom was all the way in the cab, getting teary over the event that would separate us for a span of just 3 months – that’s how mother’s are, she has been through the separation for well over 4 years of my engineering, and here she is, almost crying over the 3 month duration. Dad was sparingly giving his advices based upon his trip to the Europe and other destinations on the way of lives in country’s other than India. Kator, was watching all the actions in the cab, just passing a smile and comforting mom sometimes. I was all the way rehearsing the place where I kept all the documents, place to go when Iam questioned by any authority’s and of course all the while I was hoping that the $ Vs INR exchange rate soared above 50( selfish me, but then that’s the way my mind was thinking at that point).
Finally, we reached the premises of the airport, when our cab was just kissed by the car behind us and then all hell broke loose. The cab driver was enraged and was hurling choicest of abuses at the other driver and was not ready to budge an inch from the place. It took the cop to interevene and make the driver move ahead – I was thankful to the maamu, as the 3 hour check-in time for all international flights was coming near by. Mom could not control her tears and she broke, while asking me to be strong. Dad too I felt had his eyes a bit damp though it really did not show up. Kator, was in his as usual jolly mood happy for my maiden trip to US. Finally I entered the airport and from there on I never came out to see off mom dad and kator. Seems that they were waiting for an hour.
My flight started off at 11:15 PM and there I finally started off my flight to the US with,without and inspite of all hinderances.
The next few posts would be dedicated to the 3 month vacation( as some of my friends say its hard to call it project work, as I have the infamy of masti during the tightest of schedules), then I would throw light on a few other issues which have been keeping my buzee mind all the more buzee.
In the meanwhile, though there is nothing un-usual about the haste which precludes any IT pro's US trip , it is the manner in which I saw things coming to a dead-stop at one instance and then revving up to speed the other moment.
Request you all to put in your comments !!!