A Fruitful Sunday

Many Bombayites spent their Sunday fruitfully this week- painting the walls of Tulsi Pipe road from Mahim to Lower Parel at the WALL PROJECT. I missed it the last time (15th August 2009). It was too late by the time I got to know of it and the very next day, I added myself to their group on Facebook promising myself not to miss it the next time after ogling at the photos for over an hour!

My life has taken a complete turn ever since I switched jobs and I crave to find time for myself! Spent Saturday night at my childhood chum Chinky's place who was lecturing me, stressing on the fact that her job sucked more than mine and that it's a way of life. I slept really late but it was a peaceful sleep after having found some solace in the fact that I wasn't alone!

The WALL PROJECT was to start at 8 am and people could paint right upto 8pm. Aditi, Neeraj and I decided to be the first ones to get there so that we'd get the best wall and even some of those limited paints! I set an alarm for 7.30 on 2 different cellphones and a clock. Needless to say, a lazy bum that I am, I stopped all of them when they went off and slept away to glory! It was only at 9.30 that I woke up with a start, realising I had to go somewhere! I checked my cellphone expecting my inbox to be flooded and to find a good number of calls unattended. I got nothing. Aditi was asleep and so was Neeraj. I had to wake them up and finally, we all got ready, Alisha joined in too and both of us stepped out. We reached at 1pm and saw the entire street all bright and colourful, people were still painting and each work of art was remarkable! We wanted to get started as soon as possible. There were a few cans of paint left in the BMC truck but we bought some nevertheless, along with some mugs, brushes and a roller. Alisha and I booked our walls and waited for Aditi. She arrived soon and we quickly planned on drawing the Bandra Worli sea-link! I had thought of drawing the Java cup symbol a week back but then the sea-link seemed far more exciting and we started off with it. Alisha drew a Unicorn and she finished in no time! We were still painting the wall-background blue when she was all done with her painting. Neeraj came a little later and joined us in completing the sea-link. He took a lot of photographs capturing every good angle of all the paintings!

We took the longest time for the sea-link and it turned out to be worse than what we expected! But we had fun and clicked as many photos of it as possible, posing with the moon and the boat. :D We even wrote our Twitter handles on it! When you do something with all your heart, you love and cherish it no matter how good or bad it is! :)

It was a great feeling to see so many people painting together, one wall-different people- professional artists, first-timers (like us), toddlers and some street kids too! It just makes me love Bombay all the more!!!

Here are some of the paintings on our side of the street (courtesy: Neeraj :))

Loved this wall the best of all that I saw-

The artist-

You can check out all of the paintings here:

http://www.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=162741035038&view=all

And add yourself to the group here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9822921861

Happy Painting! :)

The good times! :(

It's been a week since I joined this company (can't take names.. company policy it seems!) and so far I can undoubtedly term it as an experience of hell on earth! I came here only to build myself a career in development and I don't think I'll last here long enough. I miss my old workplace terribly.. I miss everything about it.

First of all, I miss looking forward to coming to work. I'd always look forward to meeting my team- Calvin, Abdul, Manwar, Anandji, Abhishek and our mentor- Pandeji!

I miss having a laughter-filled lunch break. Calvin and I would always joke about the canteen food being unlimited and how we could mint money out of it! One comment from Calvin and I'd be on a laughter riot! Once, we even played table tennis in the air when no one was looking. Our rule was to not let the ball hit the table- NO MATTER WHAT! :D He's the best combo of a funny+ sweet friend I've ever met!

I miss my long philosophical conversations with Abdul. We'd get into discussions, debate on something, and then Google would solve it for us sometimes.

I miss Manwar who'd always scare me off and then himself protect me from falling into a soup..

I miss having fights with Abhishek! :D

I miss Jigy's witty comments and the way he'd make fun of my walk and my way of talking. I wish there was a Jigy at my new workplace!

It was always a pleasure talking to people like Birju, it'd leave me feeling so calm, happy and better about myself :)

I miss Krishna's innocence, his laugh and his way of saying "Dude" :D

I miss flirting with Nolan on our internal chat client. I miss Janeve too.

I miss all those little things like wearing casuals to work everyday.

I miss going for tea breaks whenever I wanted to and sipping on endless cups of tea whilst working. Here, we have to wait for ONE tea break and can't even take the cup outside the vending machine area!

I miss sitting with my team in the parking lot and laughing my heart out!

I miss everything... :(

Building a career - Not my cup of tea!

I was all set to build a career soon after I graduated.

Four months back, I wanted to get into a company because I thought I would be comfortable there and it suited my interests at that time. Thanks to the recession, I took up another job not getting a call from this one. I was scared, I didn't think I'd get adjusted to the new environment and the new people there. I stepped out of my comfort zone, and soon started enjoying the new environment and the people. It made me more confident and happier. There was so much freedom there that I started exploring my other interests. Just when I got attached to the people and the environment there, I got a call from this company I wanted to get into four months back. And since I had waited for so long, I took up the offer.

I didn't realise that it meant getting back to my old self, to the old environment again. I liked my new self better. Adjusting to the old environment scares me, it makes me feel I'll get back to being my old self again, the one I am not very fond of. So each time I try to talk to a person, I back out, I hold myself back subconsciously. I feel claustrophobic sitting on my desk all day and trying hard to focus. I haven't found a single person who would come out just for a walk with me, or have a cup of tea. I am rethinking my decision time and again. People tell me I should learn to live with the consequences of my decisions, and learn to live with different kinds of people and different environments. I don't think I am flexible enough, since I am having a hard time doing that. I don't know if I am working here because I want to, or because I am good at the work. It's not giving me enough time for myself, to do the things I love doing. I am so confused! I wish I wasn't like this all the time. I want to be sure of myself.

One thing that I have learnt out of this- "Always obey your parents, they know what's best for you." I wish I had listened to them all this time... Things wouldn't have been so difficult then.