Caught snapping in BITS

Utop Pahadi .. the Hanuman temple...the real reason for us being back in BITS. I wanted to be back here after I married, and finally made it after three kids!

Need I say anything?? I have always felt the clock tower lawns to be the most beautiful place in the campus...


Sky...been there with loads of dear people and now back with the dearest of all!!

This one is for you guys...

all of you who share a multitude of BITS memories with me n karthik!!!
..some tit bits...
...dearest wingies ....did you know that our rooms in MAL (oh yes..it has again been converted into a boys hostel due to the sheer decrease in the number of girls since BITSAT was introduced!!!) are now being habitated by the chowkies!!! Well..Karthik took snaps outside his old rooms and I went to take mine...and the chowkie says.."bhai photo ley lo...ab ye mera room hai"!!!

and something to cheer for the guys..seems the percentage of girls (it was 40% in my time) is now 18 % which is still ahead of the IITS...(is it 7-8% ?). The question being asked around by the faculty is ..why is it that girls tend to do poorly when there is an entrance test involved, but crack their boards?? Any answers?

For all of us who grew up there listening to ample amounts of Tamil and Telugu, the complete Hindi culture might baffle. For a while Karthik n I just stood around trying to forge our image of a BITSIAN to those we saw around us and failed. But, we soon got used to that, and learnt that there are still a sizable number of kids from AP, but a meagre few from TN. Why??? No one from the TN board this time, the handful of guys from Chennai were CBSE. Is it that the kids are just fed up of preparing for umpteen entrance exams? IIT, TNPCEE, BITSAT and what not? Maybe they prefer the good enough colleges closer to home than travel all the way up to Rajasthan? Hey..you guys are really missing something. (There were only some 3000 applications from TN compared to 40,000 from AP!)

The new Students Activity Centre is worth drooling over. If you could see our old SUB (Students Union Block) now, it feels like a pebble in the vast desert that is the SAC. The night I visited the SAC, there was a ROBO football going in the ..hold your breath....the amphitheatre!! If dreams could come true, this is what would result. I just couldn't locate my dearest place, BSL (Bits Students Library) anywhere..so, if any of you have any info..let me know..I hope it is not one of those things that got blown away in the winds of change.

.. Shall get back to you when I remember something else!! take care till then!

Back to those days....

Ah...what a fantastic journey it was. A journey made memorable by the sheer memories it evoked and by the place we went to! Karthik and I took a long pending trip back to our college, BITS, Pilani and came back, refreshed, and younger by a few years!! We relived all the places we'd been togethter, that held memories for him, his hostel rooms, right from the first to the last year, the radi wallas, ratan ji, munna and so on, on whose endless sam chats and shikanji he and his wingies lived, who actually remebered his room number after all the 10 years that has passed in between, to all the places that held a lot of memory for me...the mime club, I had been the coordinator of which in my psenti year, met all the kids, took them for a sky treat and saw their run through (the mime and dance club performances are held during the cultural night, Mithali for Apogee, the academic fest), Institute Canteen, visited c'not place, had Chimpu's M & B and sharma's Gulab Jamun ...ah.... it was a true dream come true for us. We walked for the entire two days that we were there...woke up in the morning, took in the crisp fresh air and then set out with a bag and caps to explore our much beloved huuuugggeee campus. Its become even more sprawling now, with the latest lecture theatre complex and the beautifully done central library. The very first night, we reached Pilani at 11.30 P.M and all the journey blues, the ride in the haryana roadways bus with the conductor smoking his beedi into my face and the hour long wait in Bhiwani to catch the connecting bus to Pilani, just slipped away from us. We were the kids we were 10 years ago...washed our face and walked hand in hand through the rain to the night canteen (ANC). Just sat and observed the new kids on the block...and all illusions and delusions fell away. Hah..do I still crave to be the person I was in college, free, easy going, no responsibilities and having oodles of fun? Not anymore. In more ways than one, the trip back to BITS helped me clear a few cobwebs and remove a few ghosts. I cherished the saraswathi temple, a particular tree beside a particular hostel, certain spots in the insti, the canteen, some rooms and so on..held them sacred and always wistully thought of them and had a longing to always rewind the clock, but this visit helped me to see that I am extremely happy to be the person I am now, so very different from the girl who roamed this beautiful campus 10 years ago, yet, it is that very same person I was who enabled me to take in all the challenges these years have thrown in and grow from it, earning the self respect and the love and respect of my husband. Every dear place I visited, I talked to the girl I was, saw her in my mind, that ever smiling face, saw my friends and dear ones and wow.........it was an experiance like no other. I laid so many ghosts to rest this one trip that now I feel I can just move on with like without looking back, it is like wiping the slate clean so that I can create many many more treasurable memories together with my family.
I have deviated from the travelogue, but hell, I wouldn't want to bore you with it all...many are extremely personal, like the visit to the mime club practice, sky treat, talks with the raddi wallas, the pahadi trip, visit to Guru and Gsu's house and finally the extremely tiring Jaipur trip........
By the end of it, we were thirsting for our kids and quenched ourselves back in Chennai!!!!!

Celebrating the ones!

I just happened to change my lillipie tickers (a much pending event) to notice that Kishu is exactly 1 year, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day old!!! So, here's an ode to my dear daughter...

One year of laughter
One year of joy
One year of pure love,
which made our spirits buoy!

One year, and still a baby
One year we've seen you grow
One year not too less
to say amma, appa and bowbow!

One year I've struggled with work
One year you've never let me go
One year was worth it all
Just to cuddle you through high and low.

One year Kachi and Kautu learnt to give
One year I saw them molly coodle you
One year they were such sweet big brothers
that I longed to be in your shoe!

For that one year, we thank you
for, you showed us what 'a bundle of joy' is
Showered us with your kisses, enriched us with your smiles
Made us feel blessed, you are god's special kiss!


...Amma...

Krithika

kishku moshuki.... (how I call her)
kishu... (Karthik's name for her)
papaneni shoni shoni (this is a name that Kachi has put for her)
beba (this is kautu's pet name for her)
has started walking!! One year and a month old, my darling has started walking full time!! Forgotten all about crawling and is now racing with her brothers!! If you ask me how it feels to have three kids under three and all walking and about.....there are just no words to describe it. So beautiful and so filling, that there is hardly a time except when all three are sleeping that you can walk about the house without tripping on one! Kishu is almost always wandering off on her own now a days, exploring to her hearts content the places she couldn't reach when she was crawling. Her interest for squatting by the kitchen and playing with the cooker and other vessels is over, she is now determined not to be in one place for longer than five minutes. And she is stubborn, fights with her brothers to get her way out and surprisingly, almost always wins!!!! She manages to grab things out of their hands and pull them out of my lap and place herself securely on me! Extremely jealous, I am just lucky that her brothers are secure enough to let her be pampered and not feel a thing besides that she is the baby of the house! Oh yes, their love does become violent and does get an occasional beating or pushing, but its been to the frequency of maybe around once a day, so I guess it should be fine for now. Well, all of them are in their bath right now, and thats how I am getting to share all this with you, before the brigade is back, let me bid adeu...good day to you all.

Not so brainy anymore?

What is with the moms who have quit their jobs to be with their kids? Do they really feel the need to proclaim to the world that they were intelligent before, and have lost all their brains by taking the very intelligent decision of being at home with the kids? For reference, do see the comment by an anon for the previous post. I know that it is considered beneath anybody to actually reply to an anon comment, but this one set me thinking a lot. All the complexes of that writer has been displayed in that such short a comment. The fact that she now feels inferior to women who are actually continuing in the embedded software industry and the fact that she has made a big deal of her choice of staying at home, a decision that has to be applauded, but in no way should be considered a sacrifice. I would certainly not make any decisions that can be called a sacrifice just so that I can hang it one day over my children's head ...quite literally" I have done so much for you...given up my challenging career " and so on. It is absolutely my decision taken because I loved being at home with my darlings any day that being in that stuffy office with poor ventillation and a computer to interact with. As to considering myself intelligent, I do. If the fact that I have been able to aquire a degree from a prestigious institute, have been able to bag projects that have been challenging in the extreme, and those that were vied by collegues much senior and have managed an amazing performance review constantly all the years of my service, does not indicate that ofcourse I am brainy, dammit, then what else?!!! Oh yes, this is just the academic quotient, I might be lacking in a lot of other spheres, but that is not a topic I would like to bring out in this forum! But to get back, dear anon, you don't have to feel that taking this step of being at home is a big thing, as it is something you have obviously taken with a of thought and so, it is something that you wanted to do with all your heart, and so, it is nothing to be made a big fuss about!! And yes, being at home in no way makes you less intelligent, rather it expands all your intelligences to a large extent. I hope you are happy in the choices you made, and I hope there are others out there who feel the same with me!

At home, in bangalore, out of work and enjoying it

just about sums up my existence right now! Oh... and minus a computer and plus the net connection, so that the occasional visits of my brother with his laptop enables me to give a mild update on whats been happening here!!! Yes, I finally resigned, resigned from office and to the fact that three kids prone to wheezing and asthma equals the mom being at home for them!! Cost cutting includes just having a maid who blitzkriegs in the morning for mopping up the house, and all the rest of the household jobs resting squarely on my rather wide shoulders! Being at home is just so much work that I am astounded how I ever managed to sneak in office work. I mean, now when I am not washing the vessels, I am cooking, else I a putting the still breastfeeding krithika to sleep or I am cleaning the ever messy house, so, how in the world did I have enough space in my head to carry on building code and designing all those complex designs?? Is it the case of 'man adapting, rather expanding himself to situations' which means that I have essentially shrunk mentally? I am not sure, may be by the time my brother drops in here again, I might have an answer!