A trip to Lonavala

Last long weekend we decided to do a one-day trip to Lonavala. Lonavala is just 60-65kms from Pune so we decided to come back the same day and anyway the rates of rooms in lonavala is sky rocketing during this season. We just wanted a break and so weren't planning to do serious sight seeing just plain enjoy the weather and I think we just did that. ok...maybe we just spend too much time in the car deciding where to go and where not to get down but still ;).

Our first stop in lonavala was supposed to be Karla caves and then work our way to the other points in lonavala but unfortunately we completely forgot about karla caves and reached lonavala. So our first stop was walwhan dam. Now except for this banner you see here, everywhere else (books, notices about places to see) you will find it spelled as Valvan dam. Photography was restricted in here. It has a good 1 km walk to the dam. A very beautiful garden (again restricted to aam janta) is maintained on the other side of the dam. Peapod was wide awake in the car all through the drive and slept just before we reached this place. Inspite of our efforts to wake her up she didn't budge.


The climate was very plesant with rain showers every once in a while with the cool breeze blowing softly.


The maize was available at every nook and corner of lonavala. Roasted ripe maize served with salt and chilli powder spread with lemon over was just too good. I was having roasted ripe maize for the first time and the soft juicy corn was just the thing to be had with the drizzling rain.


Did not go to bushi dam as the place was full of people and there was filth all around. We parked our car and spend some time off the road near Bushi Dam feasting ourselves to the greens and rocks.

We saw a couple of points. Rajmachi was the best. The depth of it was scary. Since there was no heavy rainfalls, the waterfalls weren't as expected but the weather more than compensated for it.





Karla Caves was THE BEST. Above are a few pics I clicked. We had to climb 100 stairs to reach the caves. There is a temple on the top and there were pregnant ladies and very old ladies climbing these stairs.


To see something that was carved in the 4th century takes you to a period in history when we believe men weren't as advanced but they had the tools and brains to convert rocks in the wilderness into caves and montessories and the talent to create such sculptures. I am sure you will find better snaps on the net of these.

And here is my peapod in her first raincoat. We bought it thinking she can get a little mobile without we having to worry about she catching a cold but she was sleeping when we reached most places and the places she was awake we couldn't let her go so for peapod I am not how great a trip this was but a good break from the usual.


If it weren't for stories & snaps carried back home to show-off, travel wouldn't have been so much fun.

My Fetishes tag

HHGM tagged me and so here goes my fetishes.

1) I can not throw food away. This does not mean I do not have waste or left overs but wherever possible leave the honors for my mom. I have some kind of a heavy guilt trips after I dump food in the dustbin so I just avoid doing it. Now, while I have to do the honors myself, I make sure I eat little or force myself to eat it all. I even try not to cook in excess, because ultimately most land in the bin and I just can't bring myself to throw it away.

2) I have to clean my house just when I am leaving or before retiring to bed. All beds neat and spread well, kitchen clean, sink clear, toys off the floor, clothes either dumped into the closet or the washing machine but out of sight. I hate coming back or getting up to a untidy house.

I tag Risha & Pushpa, lets see your list girls.

The 'I admire' tag

Its been long due so will get straight to the point.

I Admire..

1) Self-made men and women. I just love autobiographies of people who talk about hardships, struggles, who risk it all to follow their heart, who have faith & hope and success arriving slowly and steady. I love these stories and I love these people all the more.
2) Patience and Calmness. I admire people who in crisis can think through and remain calm and tell you "this will pass but this is what we need to do".
3) People who live with difficult in-laws to take care of them and maintain a cordial atmosphere. It takes immense patience and courage to deal with 50/60plus tantrums when you are just 20/30 plus.
4) People who have spick and span and orderly homes. I am at your feet for that effort you put in. I was once visiting P's cousin in our home town. The cousin's wife opened her almirah and the sight of neatly stacked towels, sheets and clothes absolutely bowled me over. I just loved her for that.
5) Genuine people. They say & do what they think they should inspite of knowing others might not approve.
6) People who can introspect and accept a fault.
7) People who can go out of their way to help and not show an ounce of arrogance.
8) People who can cook well.
9) People who take special care of kids and oldies on the road or other places. People who stop for a child to cross or let that uncle overtake you, since he seems to be in so much hurry.
10) People who stand up for a cause and stand by it till the end.
11) Parents who can put their kid's happiness before society norms and patterns.
12) People who are keen to learn new things.

I love doing such tags, atleast makes me think and pen it down explicitly.

Ek ladka ek ladki.....

...is no movie just a story :)

A couple of months back we had our boss and the boss's boss come visit us from 'Phoren'. My direct boss is a beautiful, tall chinese lady and her boss is a handsome young chap. We interact with both directly and hence we were glad to meet and put a face to the many mails & calls we have. It was one happening week when they were around with meetings and presentations and outlining other 10 things to do and words like roadmap, growth path, walkthroughs, entities, project plans, WSRs, WTSes, TWSes formed most conversations. All that is fine.

The thing I wanted to blog about was the way a lot of people(read guys) sneer wicked jokes at such business visits when there is a girl and a guy involved. You know what they mean when they say 'should be a good tour for thoes 2' and smile, what creative imagination could be screening in their heads and will joke about it at the next available opportunity. Unfortunately, these kind of jokes irritate me no end. It also ends up with me giving them a little piece of my mind. Maybe I would not have been so offended if I were not in such a situation a couple of years back.

A couple of years back, I was in Korea for 3-4 weeks. I was there to train a certain group on a product and there was also an another colleague(read guy), a good friend of mine to set up their servers and stuff like that. You would be lucky if you could find a English speaking guy in Korea around you. We had a tough time telling the people at the reception of the hotel that my colleagues phone was dead. We were making a good scene at the reception with lots of action with dialogues in English & Hindi too to take the steam off the frustration we were feeling. The 2-3 Weekends I spent there, we did visit a couple of places including the Disney theme park but made sure we never lost sight of each other. We also cooked together, rather it was me cooking whatever little I knew then, and he was busy chatting with colleagues across the globe awake at that hour about what he thought I was doing and making me popular for my cooking expertise. I was taking a few online classes from them as well on what do I do with a rice cooker, which had everything written around it in Korean and the manual as well was in Korean. There was not a question about asking anyone in the hotel for help so we were chatting with colleagues who had used rice cooker to tell us what could the possible options be. In office, when I asked a female colleague for where to get something to drink, she showed me the restroom (that was helpful anyway, since I wouldn't know how to ask for that). To cut the long story short, it was difficult times. We had a few things written down for us by a gentleman in office who knew English that we would need to take a taxi and mention our hotel, water, to ask for veg food at a food joint ...a few basics. So with all that hefty details you can make out that we would dare not loose each other on a street or even in office.

I could sense the sneer looks and suspicious smiles in the office that they were wearing towards the end of my trip. Made me very uncomfortable to be judged so unreasonably. After all I am a Bharatiya nari with the culture-vulture thing. I was only glad to fly out as soon as I was done.

When we are in a group, no one has their brains working overtime but the moment you have 2 people of the opposite sex in a new place, people just love to indulge themselves with assumptions for pure cheap fun. This is not just Indian men its just about men.

Note: To train them was easy since it didn't really matter what I said, I ended up spending hours creating snapshots and wrting down in as few simple words as possible 'all' I intended to say.

Where is the balance between work and home?

Like Poppin's mom and moppet's mom, this is just a rant and there is no point here again.

I am not sure since when I have been thinking of how well can I manage & balance my home and work equation. Probably from the time I conceived my little peapod I have been thinking what is the best thing to do.Every time somebody as much as sneezes about SAHM/WM thing I get all worked up and then I am wondering if I have my priorities set right or am I just going with the flow? Am I neglecting or am I missing out on peapod?

Work, I must. No questions about it. We don't have inheritance lying around us for a rainy day. I don't have anybody to lend me a hand(with paper mints) when I need. Infact I want to be there for them without having to stretch my hands in front of P for it. Between me & P we are just earning enough. I don't want to live a hand-to-mouth life. I want a good spacious place to stretch myself, to let the peapod play around, to run in and out of it. I want a good neighbourhood. I want to be able to indulge my peapod once in a while with something, maybe an interesting toy, even if it is a wee-bit expensive. I want a decent school for the peapod.I want to provide the peapod with good education. We would like to go on small vacations far and near with peapod . I want to be able to indulge myself and family without saving for months & years. I don't want to run begging for money when someone in the family is ill. 10 years down the line I want financial security. So there is not a question about me not working.

I left peapod home at 4 months when I started working. Initial weeks wasn't easy, it wasn't meant to be anyway. But as I said, SAH was never an option. When I started off my new term in office after the peapod, I had 2 options, stay around, get your annual increments, work 9-6 and things will be smooth. Soon good work came my way, I got involved and recognition came in too. After my appraisal last year which went very well for the 4 months I was associated with it but I wasn't offered anything more in terms of responsibilities. When I discussed this with my manager, he said he thought I was happy the way it was and assumed I wouldn't like to shoulder more responsibilities since it might mean hectic work schedule and some travel as well. I was confused after this discussion. Many rounds of discussion with P and I finally decided that since I am working, I might as well compete tooth and nail and take on more because that is the only way working is gonna be interesting. Negotiated my role and responsibilities keeping travelling at bay. If not, this would just have been some place where I warm the seat 9 to 6 and from where the money comes in. But if I am here 8-9 hours a day, might as well give it my best.

Now my current firm isn't very big on work-from-home options due to a lot of security issues. Worked fine for me but at the back of my mind I was preparing myself to join some place that gives me the flexibility to work from home. Again, I need to think over what I want and how involved I need to be and to groom myself for the profile I have in mind. While all this is brewing in my head, I have been taking a few conference calls from home. Usually 8pm, a time when I should be tending peapod, I should be cooking, cleaning etc etc. An hour long call wasn't easy. Peapod wasn't very happy about the fact that I was yapping away or tuned into somebody other than her. She wanted water,dudhu,app while I was trying to concentrate on what was going on. I got her water, a few biscuits, a few toys to keep her occupied. she wasn't satisfied and kept tugging at me and the cell and finally I handed her over to P and shut the door. She was mad and was howling and hitting the door real hard. Finally I went on mute, with the loud speaker on and had also locked my keypad. Got her in and obviously she wanted to play with the cell, which I let her trying to follow the discussion as closely as possible. 2 such calls in a week and I am not sure working from home is after all such a neat option. I cannot concentrate on work nor can I tend to her completely.

Working from home full time surely is not possible with a child, then might as well be at work, a different premise I mean and concentrate. Else be at home and tend to the peapod which obviously I don't have the luxury to and even if I had I am not sure how I would do without working myself up. So finally what we have is work part-time from home. The pay is down by half and the hours you might have to put in, I am not sure if 4 hours a day would be sufficient. Saturdays and Sundays, I do not have more than an hour or 2 to myself. I might as well stretch then than get on to my laptop (so that explains fewer posts inspite of the laptop). To manage 4 hours a day to concentrate and work I will need a maid, to clean, cook and to run after my peapod.Could be one or two with half the pay. So I doubt if work-from-home is a good option for people in my stream of work.

Currently, to me, for me, what seems like a good option is to go steady with my full time job for the next 5-6 years. Take a break, pursue an another profession which does not demand long hours, travel or such and gives me time to be around the peapod. What that profession should be, no clue yet. I can see a couple of options but not sure 5-6 years down the line if I will still have the same views. While at it, what about 'Take a break now', now that disturbs the synergy of various things like paying off loans, savings etc. If I was confident enough(which I am not) about resuming it some other time, say 2-3 years down the line, maybe I would have opted for a break now. So looks like so far I'm on course. I know this is the only way it works for me but yes I am constantly wondering if there is a better route...all because I don't want to miss peapod's growing years.