Category Archives: experiences

100 Days

Of return to Bengaluru

Ulsoor Lake

Ulsoor Lake

It’s been 100 days since I returned back to Bengaluru and have started to travel to work. Few observations, in no particular order:

  1. I wanted to avoid Traffic and Weather in this post but all in vain. No matter what, these 2 topics always come up in every other conversation. This city needs to rise up above this.
  2. Roads and Traffic are slightly better. At least on the ways I travel.
  3. So heartening to see Metro work nearing completion at some places.
  4. Rain now ruins both the road and the traffic like never before.
  5. New Eateries have opened up. They are now bigger, crowdier, and more Instagram-worthy! Many old places are now gone too. May be every 10 years things have a churn. This time may be due to Pandemic, changes are more intensive. Few comments:
    • The Rameshwaram Cafe: so much crowd that you want to avoid. But so much hype that you want to visit. Repeat.
    • The Filter Coffee, Indiranagar: becoming new Favorite. USP: Sambhar is not sweet here.
    • Iron Hill, ORR: Loved it.
    • Long Boat, ORR: Okayish.
  6. Working from Home, 3 days a week. Same feeling as earlier.
  7. Working from Office, 2 days a week. Welcome change. New faces. New seat. New view. But, it is not the same as earlier because it is still not feeling organic.
  8. Cycling is bliss. I bought a new one and am now very tempted to go everywhere on that. But, the mindset to give up generating pollution takes some time. Hopefully, the frequency of cycling increases.
  9. All the past relationships are almost vanished. Several people have moved out, or are yet to come back. Faces are becoming hard to remember.
  10. I am not regretting the return as much as I thought I would. It is like I just went away for a small break and life has become back to the way it was.

All in all, the return to Bengaluru is old news now. Things are returning to old times. Old is the new normal, I think.

Moved

So move is now complete. But the unpacking might take 200 more years. The money I saved by not renting a place last year has all been spent in moving and settling down. Fortunately new place is 90% same as my old place. So it’s all nostalgia and Deja Vu but hey paint is new!

Talking of nostalgia and Deja Vu, I went back to office today after exactly 3 years having been there last on March 11, 2020. Not sure why but I couldn’t stop smiling all the way from the parking lot to the desks. The feeling of sitting and working from office is a thing I craved for so long. I am not a proponent of working from office full-time anymore but with office, there’s so purpose in life and it feels like moving forward. Though the lights in office were too bright and the mood was as usual lull.

The sounds of mouse clicks, keyboard typing and occasional telephone was a welcome change. Seeing people waiting in cafeteria in a queue to get food was joyful for some reason.

Moving is a task and it takes a lot of money, let alone effort. It would be lot more fun if the move is intentional and working from home or office is voluntary.

Moving

12000 years ago, when Homo Sapiens had had enough of it, they decided to settle down. Their main motivation was to grow food themselves instead of running behind it. After finding a decent place by the river, where breeze was nice, neighbour sapiens were not too nosy, wild animals were distant, noise was minimum and view was decent they all decided to stay there. After spending 5 minutes or so, someone said, wait there’s a better place elsewhere. After giving a collective sigh of frustration, they all picked up their domesticated animals, bags full of produce, and a quintal or so of stuff they had gathered around on the way and bartered from nearby, moved to a new place. Again, after 5 mins, someone said, wait there’s a new place where even the weather is awesome, let’s move there. They again got up, and left for the new place. And, the cycle continues.

People move all the time. Some moves are intentional, some are forced, some are coincidental. Packing your stuff and then finding that most of the stuff wasn’t even supposed to be bought, let alone be packed, is a tiring job. And an expensive one too when you lack the enthusiasm to pack anything yourself and rely heavily on Packers/Movers folks.

I am going to go back to Bangalore after about 20 months. Although I have only worked during all these months so it feels like only 20 days. The stay in Jaipur has been a bliss but I hardly enjoyed as much as I should have. Nevertheless that’s to be discussed in a different post.

No place is perfect, (except Jaipur of course), but Bangalore has got really bad rap in last 2 years. Flooding, excessive increase in traffic, rent brouhaha, construction mishaps, recession impacts and general saturation induced by techbrospeak have just added to more confusion about whether moving back is the right decision or working from home forever and getting old sitting in same place is.

But as we know, negative news gets more votes than good news, so it’s time to take up the challenge and delve into the struggle again. Let’s see how much things have changed and what life brings. With some added responsibility, I would be back in Bengaluru tomorrow. This might also energize this blog too.

See you from the other side.

Year 2021 End Blog Post

This might be the shortest Year-end blogpost ever on this blog although the year was one of the longest for me.

Professional

I am saying this every year since 2018 but I might have put together more working hours than many previous years combined. It felt so, at least. This year brought technological leaps one had to grasp quickly, farewells of people who had been colleagues for half a decade, newer chaos and managerial lessons, and of course, virtual fatigue. To top that, I had to balance all the newer challenges at work with post-graduate studies, upcoming family, and personal health. Out of all of the above, health is the one which has been sacrificed the most.

I guess I am at an age that marks the onset of sedentary problems a human might face. I genuinely wish that 2022 will be more active physically in a good way.

Personal

It was hardly the first fortnight of 2021 when I got to know that I am going to become a father this year. That set the tone of the year and changed everything for me. Each and every step we took was more cautious than before. When the Second Wave of the Pandemic was high and mighty, it was the middle of the term and we had to visit the doctors for routine check-ups every few weeks. This means that the doctors never saw our faces and we never saw theirs. The journey I went through as a father (spectator of pregnancy), was most fulfilling. Although the real journey has just begun but being able to witness the 9 months up close because of working from home was rewarding and educational. I cooked delicious food and made me confident that if in case I have to live alone on Mars, I can survive with not just potatoes. Also, I returned to my hometown and was able to live there for a tenure of more than 2 weeks for the first time in a decade. Still back home for the last 7 months!

Not sure what 2022 brings, I just hope that it ends the fear we have been living under for the last 2 years. I wish I could say that I will not discuss pandemics anymore but we all know how that jinxes everything. Let’s just say that 2022 turns out as a year of opportunities for everyone who missed it in the last 2 years.

Now, when the year is drawing curtains, I am going to help my child sleep before 12 and hope that she doesn’t get disturbed by firecrackers if any.

To a Happy 2020 everyone…

Update [March 15, 2022]: I meant 2022 above. Heh.

So I recently became… A Father

Finally.

As I type this, I have in close vicinity, a small human cooing and making the sound of a vehicle applying breaks. It is one of the most inexplicably weird emotions felt as a human – to have another human that is your own doing. That human was (re)produced by me and my wife and has our DNA and genes. This feeling can be felt only after it is realized. The small human resembles us, shares the same surname, and will depend wholly on us for some time now. That human has the same nose like me, and also the same amount of hair as me (at the moment!). Although surprisingly, and to my utter disappointment, she has blood group of her mother.

So, in a world full of %yaans and %aishas, I became a father of a baby girl not named like above a month ago. In these pandemic times, the taking care of the mother, the frequent doctor visits were all adventurous but fortunately safe. Nevertheless, after everything, here we are with a baby and that leads me to write my experience briefly after a month of being a father.

The D-Day

Delivery of a baby is a process like none other. All my conceptions and misconceptions were shattered/answered as I was fortunate enough to be in the labor room. The whole process took 9 hours for us and with each hour, it becomes more and more intense. It was like the movie Hurt Locker in which after each passing scene, the protagonist is given a much deadlier task of diffusing the bombs. If someone is reading this blog and is afraid of going through the ordeal, 1, Of course, you have heard it right and all your fears are true. It is painful and violent and bloody and requires nerves of steel and no man can understand or feel it. And 2, no matter how improbable, impossible, <insert adjective from i>, it might look, somehow, and from somewhere, the woman conjures all her strength to go through it successfully, mostly. I have absolutely no idea how that happens but when I saw it happening, it was exhilarating and exhausting just as a viewer. During the very moment, when it was about to happen, it felt like I was taken into some different world, and then I was jolted back to reality when the nurse shouted at me to come and stand closer to my wife and encourage her to push harder.

The moment the baby came out, I was asked to go outside and within seconds I heard the cry of the newborn. If I try to explain that feeling, it will ruin that moment for me. So, I will savor it and keep it within me. I will just say that those were the sweetest sounds ever and my whole body kept on shivering and each goosebump stood up in unison. Every happy hormone got activated and I doubt if I will ever feel the same.

I have achieved some happiness in life. But that moment of happiness tops everything else a million times over.

What is Sleep?

Almost everyone who wished me luck when I announced the soon arrival of our baby, also cautioned me to take as much sleep as possible. Now, I am not a big fan of sleeping so I didn’t take such wishes in the right manner. Who are they to tell me? I can manage sleep. What’s the big deal? I was happily sleeping 6 to 7 hours daily all my life and could manage late nights or early mornings with ease. I can pull this off, I thought. Only now do I realize that I slept like a baby earlier because no baby woke me up after every 2 hours during those 6 hours and asked me to stay awake for any time between 15 minutes to a couple of hours at any random time during the night. The sleep and the sleep cycle have been broken. Now I doze off after my baby has slept. I get up whenever she wakes up. Not that I want to blame my baby for it. Everything everyone cautioned against was true. I just blame everyone who formalized my circadian rhythm all my life.

The Future

No matter how bad the world looks thanks to crimes, wars, pandemics, climate change, Internet Bans, traffic, potholes, pollution, traditions, etc, I still feel that the future holds something good. So the world my daughter inhabits will also have pros and cons. I will attempt to train her as much as possible to deal with it. I cannot predict the future but can hope that she gets to feel as equal as I felt and is able to tackle things I struggled with in a better manner. Rest everything will fall in place I guess. Why overthink!

Curious Query

Not wanting to sound pretentious, but we know that the world is full of idiots. And all those idiots have had kids and they brought them up, somehow! Most of the kids turned out fine too. 8 billion times! Does it happen in flow or is there a trick to it? How did they manage their work and sleep? Although it takes a village to raise a child but who all contributes?

Overall Experience

It has just started. I will be able to give a go-no-go only after a lifetime. But as of now, these are looking like the best days of my life.

Do what you can!

I always used to wonder how would people who lived in history felt when they had to undergo some calamity. Natural disasters, Wars, Revolutions, and whatnot. Well, we got the opportunity to face a pandemic during our lifetime as well. Pretty depressing couple of weeks, aren’t they. I just hope and wish that the crisis ends soon and whoever is becoming part of the stats, becomes part of those 98-99 percentage who survive with mild symptoms.

But as I write this, the city I am in, Bengaluru, is breaking records every day. As I recall, in the first week of March 2021, the number of daily cases was around 200-300. Today, it has crossed 20,000. I don’t know about others and don’t have to wait for the government, I have imposed a lockdown on myself and won’t be venturing out for anything at all till better air prevails. I am privileged to do that, fortunately. But sitting at home makes one feel extremely anxious when notification after notification just piles up the frustration and feeling of helplessness. What can I do with my limited resources and a family to take care of? Mind you I have seen what a family goes through when they fall prey to the virus. The amount of panic and frantic calls one makes to arrange a bed is suffocating figuratively, to say the least. Even right now, I have already had plenty of news after news of friends, colleagues, and relatives testing positive and nobody can help, to be frank.

Last year, people donated money to PM Cares wholeheartedly when hospitals in India could manage and avert the crisis to a certain extent. Since then, from the government’s side, what could or could not be done is all evident. People in power or with influence and governments who could do things didn’t do or delayed in doing, without any shame or remorse is also known. I would wait for the blame game for some other time but here are some resources I found which can help NOW. I am not a huge influencer or anything but can certainly help in my own limited way by sharing some genuine links which can be of some help.

Hospital Data

https://covid-19-hospital-data.el.r.appspot.com/

Meals

https://covidmealsforindia.com/

Donation Links

https://donate.indiacovidresources.in/

If you want to donate from out of India:

For friends who stay outside India: 

Through Cryptocurrency?

Telegram Group for Information:

Telegram group – https://t.me/joinchat/NPW-kgUldiAzMzQ1

Whatsapp https://chat.whatsapp.com/B4fvtqb1K0pLumoXFsdNrN

I can also do this minor thing, although again, I am not a pro artist, and neither this blog has a great reach but SEO works:

If you make a donation of Rs. 1000 or above, please share the receipt with me (https://abhinavbhatt.com/contact/ / http://twitter.com/abhinavbhatt01) and I can send you any one of the high-resolution soft copy minimal movie posters I made a few years ago. (please adjust with this for now)

https://minimalmovieposters.in/tagged/abhinav_bhatt

Writer’s Block

I haven’t blogged for 10 days straight. That’s the longest span since I started blogging daily last year. But I didn’t have any writer’s block. I had too much to do with work and the life which remained apart from work left me so tired that I slept like a baby as soon as I was done for the day.

Any habit which people take up, takes immense amount of hard work to be done daily. Despite all the challenges, some people still make out time to go about it. That calls for amazing patience, and the ability to take out time for themselves.

Guess, people who can take out time to do things they like are the ones who are good with time management. That’s what it needs and takes. It is The thing to learn and be better at, throughout life. If one can manage time, one can manage life.

Here’s to Writer’s Block getting over and resuming of writing (any good habit), whenever one can.