Dew

Yes, you are reading it correct. Summer camps have become more of a business, a business that capitalizes on the parents' craze to make sure that their kids learn all that there is, in the world within a span of five days/seven days/ten days/fifteen days/one month/two months; That is how summer camps are slotted. kids' peer pressure mind states; Everyone in the play group attends one camp or the other, so its very difficult to convince a child that its okay 'not' to attend a camp. parents' spending power on 'everything' and 'nothing', sometimes even without thinking once; leave alone the idea of "Think twice before you act". I am not saying Summer camps are bad. In fact, I think it is a nice way to know a lot of people, to know how to mingle with people you do not know, to learn good (sometimes bad, but that can be handled at home) habits/behaviour, to learn something new and to make the summer vacation a little fruitful. What I think is no...

This post has been picked up by Bangalore mirror dated 31st December 2009 This morning, I woke up to hear the sad news about the actor, Dr. Vishnuvardhan's demise. Always when a child is born, you feel great and when a life is lost, there is an unsettled, unknown feeling of sorrow, whether or not you know the person. The clock doesn't stop anyway. I had my work day ahead, so, I stepped out of my room with a cup of tea as usual, to watch TV. Usually some music is on, mostly devotional. Today, there was a news channel that was telecasting ( is still telecasting, as I write this post three hours later ) the proceedings at the actor's house. There were a lot of people around, grieving over the loss. There was this telephonic condolence talk that was also being relayed. A caller who seems to be a great fan of the actor starts off his condolence note with a 'Good Morning'!!!!!. How can you say Good morning when it has not been a very good morning for most fans and near a...

This post has been published on Bangalore Mirror dated 7th December 2009 Working from Home has become very common in corporates these days. Workplaces are looking to reduce cost involved in space and power. More and more offices are making this option available to the employees whose physical presence is not really required to get the work done. These people who permanently work from home are called 'Remote Workers' although I do not like the term much. I often realize that when I work from home ( very rare days) I work much more than I do at office. So, there must be a better term as I don't want anyone to register 'Remote worker' as 'Remotely working..'. I chanced to have a conversation with a colleague who works from her home office. Surely, this sounds better than a remote worker. We were discussing about the idea of working from home in general. Here are what I captured and later realized: When you work from home, work is always at the back of your mind...

This article has been picked up by Bangalore mirror on November 2nd 2009. http://www.bangaloremirror.com/index.aspx?page=others&do=/blogs/post/Food-and-food-for-thought.aspx I recently had to change two planes of the same airline company to reach Bangalore. On board the first plane, the flight attendant came over with a tray full of snacks. I did not want all of them and so told her I'd take only the Chat and Sweet. I told her to put away the vegetable burger. She said, "Take it ma'am, we will not be using it anytime again." So, I tried to explain "See, I don't want to eat a veg burger and I am telling you even before I take the tray from you. Just wanted to make sure that I don't want to waste it." She said," That's okay ma'am. You can just let it be and enjoy whatever you like to eat.". Of course, I knew that, but just wanted to be sure that we don't waste food because, just because it was a complimentary snack. I still do...

Its just fine.... If the blind lead the blind, its just fine... This evening, I was coming back from work in the city bus. At one bus stop, one family got into the bus - Father, Mother with a baby, and another man( later came to know that he was the uncle)with a little girl. In the whole clan, only the baby and the little girl could see. The others did not have the gift of eyesight. They conducted each other so well and I don't know what made me stand up instantly ( could be that I was stunned to note that they couldn't see the world and still had so perfectly conducted themselves into the now over-crowded bus ), but then I was glad that my common sense worked.[ Of course, you know that commonsense is not very common ]. I told the little girl to sit in my seat and she guided her uncle to the seat. He was all smiles. My attention shifted to the mother with the baby. She could not see the world. It is hard to believe that the husband and wife did not have the chance to see each o...

This article appeared in Bangalore Mirror paper dated 16th October 2009. Here is the link : http://www.bangaloremirror.com/index.aspx?page=others&do=/blogs/post/Being-nice-vs-vice.aspx She did not study.. She is a maid servant in three houses.. She is very prayerful.. She loves to talk.. She is always on time.. She takes her time to do the work, but does a spic and span job.. That was all I had known about this maid servant. Late afternoon today, when she walked in briskly as if it was just dawn, I was deciding whether or not to take a nap. I was trying to fight a headache. She asked me how I was doing and that its been a long time since we met. She asked about my folks back home, my work, and my plans for the evening. I gave her all the answers and returned the courtesy with enquiries from my side. I was getting ready to take that most-important late afternoon nap, when she suddenly remarked: You look very tired, I guess all of you girls with so much of education are only tiring y...

Andhra mess..... Once quiet, but now a noisy little food joint close to my office caters to the IT folks who crowd in during Noon for lunch. We are a group of friends who frequent this place once or twice a month for sure. We all have different preferences in meal usually. One friend of mine loves peanut powder, another does not have curd, I don't usually take rice, instead ask for extra Rotis, another friend likes to have sugar soon after the usually spicy meal. Usually we place orders for "All Veg meals" and when the waiter comes over to serve, we give out our preferences. I never knew that he knew our tastes by heart... He ensured that sugar was kept on the table, extra rotis were brought in, and peanut powder took a place in our table. We are all still amazed about the memory power that this person who serves close to hundred people a day has and how much of an impact it has on us, his valuable customers. Later when we were talking about it, we realized that a lot of ...