A Day in the Life of an Indian Housewife – Part II

2.30 P.M - It was the best part of the day for Urmi. She could nicely relax in the easy chair (which was mostly occupied by her mother-in-law) with a bowl of her favourite fried potato wedges and the TV remote (someone very wise once said that whoever has the TV remote has the control of the entire household) in her lap nicely balanced. For the next two hours it would be a different life altogether - she would laugh for Iccha’s triumph over Tapasya, be angry with Ammaji, anticipate love blooming in Nakusha’s life – it was as if she had borrowed their lives for 2 hrs .. wearing designer saris walking across palatial corridors and driving swanky cars. It was literally an ‘out-o – body’ experience. She pretended to watch news or some other channel when anyone was near- not that anyone would say anything.. but she liked keeping this life of hers away, tucked in some corner of her crumpled clothes. Occasionally, she would sneak in the store room and steal just peg of the old monk (at first she thought someday Sunil would ask but now she was almost certain he has no recollection of the treasure whatsoever) cleverly hidden in one of the cardboard boxes in one dingy corner. Finally she would just take a delicious power nap (she loved ring of the word) before it’s the real life that comes calling again J

A day In the life of an Indian Housewife *Part I

"Trrriiiinnngggg.. Trrriinnnggg".."Kya Urmi tum bhi na.. subeh subeh alarm lagati ho.. theek se so bhi nahi paate.." Suneel said all this in his sleep .Urmila was already awake by then ,but she can't take a chance.. Suppose she gets up at 7:30 instead of 7 !!  it is gonna be a disaster!!..

 maaji will miss her morning cup of tea and hence start whining about how bahu s aren't like they used to be, n how Suneel always neglects his wife's mistakes and on and on it will go the whole day.. Urmila sumtimes thought what were the slokas she uttered behind those closed doors of the puja ghar.. who knows even God might have to hear her string of complains the whole day..

Suneel will miss his breakfast and tiffin .. Oh God.. bechara loves to eat.. n works so hard too .. bringing home the dough to meet the never-ending expenses-  medicines, tuition fees, occasional paneer tikka, gifts.. the list never ends till Suneel just has enough to pay for his bus fare for the remaining few days of the month.. Urmi couldn't help but feel a tinge of pain for this dutiful man who has been so nice to her for the years they have been married.. She was unhappy with this rishta coz Suneel is a shy , soft spoken man of limited means .. n life for urmi has always been full of dreams of nice white linens, soft pink palms and darjeeling tea served in blue tea-cups by obedient servants.

Looking at her palms while putting the frying pan on the second burner she could not help but rewind her life. 10 years ago all she had was a distant aunt and eyes filled with dreams… Life has come a long way and it would be difficult even to her calculative mind to measure the rise or fall of this small town girl. She was drifting further in her thoughts when suddenly she saw the white foam almost overflowing the milk pan.. she hurried to turn the knob of the burner to avert another disaster. Bozo was still fast asleep in his bed beside maaji.. Bozo just got admitted to this convent school after Urmi had actually cajoled , cried and did everything possible to convince her distant Mamaji to get her son admitted to this school. When it came to Bozo she always felt so tender and selfless, she cudn't fathom why.. She has never been known for her maternal instincts, in fact she hated babies who would just cry and scream and howl all the time.. But she loved Bozo from the second he arrived on earth and smiled at her..She silently resolved to make her son someone in the society oneday .. He has to grow up to be strong, intelligent, witty, athletic, smart all at the same time.. The impossibility of this actually made her resolve even stronger.. She made a dash for the dining room to check the clock..Shit it was 7:15 ..  15 minutes is all she had to boil the eggs, make 10 rotis, fry those aloos (she promised herself not to cook fried foods after watching that noon show "Parivaar ki Sehat Aapke haath mei" .. but time was running out and so were the ideas .. next time she would cook something else which is tasty n non-oily .. as if that existed) fill 4 bottles with water, toast 12 breads, put butter in 4 of them and jam in the rest, wash the tiffin boxes.. Well this was the easy part .. the tough one was somehow wake Bozo and Suneel; coordinate their toilet and bath timimg so that they don't bump into each other and in the midst of all this look for clean clothes that they would wear today J .. If that wasn't enough the newspaper wallah, the doodhwala and the phoolwallah will keep buzzing the bell every 2 mins. God why didn't you make some more seconds in a minute.. Why does it have to be sixty and not hundred!! If only Urmi could change this!!

Demystifying the "DO"como phenomenon

When I first saw the billboard near Amar Juice(that's near Cooper Hospital,Mumbai) the words Docomo seemed to shout at me.The simple black blackground with just the DOCOMO in startling orange, yellow and red and an inconspicious TATA in white was enough to rouse my curiousity.Well as we all know by now NTT DoCoMO is a Japanese telecom company that has acquired 26% stake for $2.7 billion last year in Tata Teleservices.Thats how Tata has come up with its GSM offering by the name of Tata Docomo.Though in the already crowded telecom space it's a new entrant,but coming from the house of Tata it has all the ingredients of a being a moneyspinner for TATA:

** the per second pulse and is being marketed very well though the concept is not novel, BPL Mobile had introduced it once way back in 2004

** the name of TATA - gives a tremendous sense of trust for generations.They are too sure of themselves and hence 26% partner shares 74% of logo space ;)

** its again targeted at the Aam Admi and Tatas for sure know that India has its share of common people who can give mind blogging volumes.

** Though it is a part of Tata Teleservices but the branding is completely different from Tata Indicomm ; TATA Docomo is trying to generate an identity not related to TATA Indicomm. Though TATA Indicomm is only in the GSM space, one might wonder why TATA wanted to create something completely different when they could have easily piggybacked with the Indicomm brother which has already achieved reach across the length and breadth of the country.

** This goes on to show that TATA is not quite keen to extend the Indicomm portfolio and going by the publicity generated in the different social networking sites ( by Docomo ) Indicomm might just get to play the second fiddle

** Whatever might be the case in the end it will be the consumers laughing all the way. The Indian Telecomm sector is proving to be a hotbed for innovations and customisations :)

The Power Of Failure

I always feel there is more to failure than what meets the eye. For starters it's something you can crib about :) and yess people do njoy listening to sad failures than amazing successes.. for once u dont have to feel those jealous glances.. if its sympathy you r looking for or some caring loving words .. then u suurely need to fail .. hehe .. moving on to serious issues and opinions - I strongly feel that failing rather than succeeding is more important , coz unless u fail u dont go bk to the drawing board ..overhauling the whole structure. u think u plan and then u work harder .. otherwise u just accept that you need to focus on something different and you give up.. giving up isn't a bad idea .. Sachin gave up studies, so did Kareena.. who says you need to be a graduate to make it big in life?... Studies are for people who r afraid of the unknown .. like ME ..hehe.. people who arent confident of themselves need acreditions from AICTE  e.t.c .. so basically all xam's are a sign of insecurity .. the need to be acknowledged for something that you know you are capable of.. isn't that disturbing..considering we all consider xams to be our milestones to success... they r actually milestones of failure.. wow... thats some conclusion

Self worth is devoid of self

What qualifies to be a stereotypical life .I am yet to find out. Our marketing prof a NM was telling the other day "If you wonder why you are doing an MBA course most probably you will keep wondering your entire life " I am sure a lot of us wonder what is it that we are running after tirelessly. Mostly the answer would be a promotion .. Dig deeper.. what does that mean ?.. more money ; better lifestyle ; and surely a a sense of satisfaction and self worth.. The word self worth is very vast - almost everything on earth can be related to self worth.. It's no wonder then that all these feeling of self worth come from external acknowledgements.. So self worth very rarely depends on self , rather it is the perception of the outside world that makes the world of difference.. that's some discovery ..PP's first law of self realization ..lol.. hehehehe..

life @ 2.34 A.M

Never believed I wud a blog..which I somehow felt was like talking when noone's interested to listen .. But then who cares .. Have always been fond of writing though fairly handicapped by the vocabs and seriously deterred by the first red marked english exam copy early in school .. so i come to where i started .. does neone care? Just a matter of time before we dissolve in ashes .. like those 10 page essays .. donno where those works of art are?.. mostly n fortunately recycled.that brings me to another important question.. Is is so easy to perish  ?