He was the Calm before the Storm.!

“I BELIEVE”

Everything is prewritten and nothing can be rewritten the only thing that we do have power over is how we react to a particular situation.

Do we give up? Or do we keep fighting? Do we choose to be brave and have courage? Or do we run away like a coward?

While I was feeling hopeless and helpless as i could do nothing to help myself, I did one thing “I believed”. I knew I didn’t come all the way to Bangalore just to see the face of disappointment and go back. I believed that everything will be alright. I believed I will somehow make it. I believed I’ll find help in the end. And I did.

It was end of the month and I was just 3 days away from being kicked out of my PG.

PGs in Indira Nagar ranged from 3 sharing 4 sharing to a hall full of beds like some general ward of a hospital. There were hardly one or two human friendly PGs but their rent made me feel they were the BMWs of PGs and I was neither Ambani nor Birla. With my salary not credited there was no way I could afford to pay advance to these Hi-Fi PGs with Wi-Fi. After my failed attempts, tired, I sat on the divider by the CMH road in Indira Nagar lost in my thoughts and it started pouring heavily. But I sat there with people staring at me which bothered me the least because all I cared about was that “It felt good”, after a long time.

It was a day before my last day in my PG, and as I sat carefree cracking jokes and laughing with my colleagues I happened to be told by one of them that a friend of theirs is looking for a roommate. That was it. I knew it was the universe helping me. Wasting no more time I spoke to the concerned person finalised the PG. Relieved!!! Yes can u believe that?? Just a day before my last day in PG.!! I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t found shelter. Though my backup plan was to dump my luggage at someone’s house and live in office.

Ha done with the PG Hassle. That’s what I thought but Hell no. This PG was the beginning of another worse ending.

I had shifted from Indira Nagar to Cooke’s Town which felt more like shifting from New York to an Indian Village. Along with new PG and new place I also found a new friend.

He was the unexpected solace before turbulence.

It was on this particular day of the induction session which always meant a nap time for me that I happened to hear a very sensible question being raised and I was like Ok let me take a look at this wise man and that's when I realised a guy like him existed. He was cute but I was too sleepy to continue admiring his cuteness. Ha! Did I know back then that he would be an important part of my life in coming days? No! No definitely I did not. While I was continuing my sleep in the training room after the induction he came up and asked for me. I was too sleepy to process anything so I just went with him and then I realised he was a messenger sent by our training manager to summon me. After talking to my manager while I left I looked at this guy and he was smiling very vibrantly and I was like ‘why is he smiling so much?  Was I looking weird with my face swollen from sleep? ‘, not giving it much thought I went back to sleep.

A few days passed and one evening I was highly bored, even bored of sleeping and I found a badminton racket lying ownerless in the corner of some random cubicle at my colleagues building so I took it and told my batch mates I’m going to play. They made fun of me saying “You just have one racket  what will you do? Catch mosquitoes?”.

I did feel whatever they said made sense but luckily i found a bunch of people who let me play along with them and it was after years I was playing Badminton and it felt great, I would play the whole evening but then I had to catch a very rare bus to Indira Nagar so I decided to leave .As I left the court I saw the induction guy looking at me and I was like ‘should I smile or no?’ and then before I could even decide he came up to me and we had a little chat and we happened to realise that we were two workless souls and decided to play badminton from the next day together. As we walked to the bus stop we exchanged numbers and the next day he helped me shift my luggage. So while on the way to my PG we happened to discuss about vegetables cooking etc. and he asked me to come over to his place for dinner. I was in bit of dilemma, I mean come on I barely knew this guy and he calls me home for dinner! Well after thinking a lot I just decided to go over to his place. Cooking seemed riskier than going to is place. It was not a bad decision after all. I liked his company and since I was having a good time and good food at his place my visits to his place became quite frequent for the dinner as my new PG had no food facility and I was someone who didn't even know to light stove so I always ended up having dinner at his place which we cooked together in other words he cooked and I gave him moral support.

It was just 6 days since I had known him that  we went out on a Sunday and after the dinner when we were planning on how to go back as it was pouring heavily outside did this weird idea had come to his mind. He said "I'm feeling like going to Mysore” and then I had this crazy look in my eyes and I was like "Let's go ".

I hardly knew him for 6 days and I was off to Mysore on a Sunday bunking office on Monday. It was a hell of a Sunday. I was sure the plan is not going to work as the last bus was at mid night and we had to go home pack bags and reach the bus stand and with Bangalore traffic plus the crazy rain it was impossible yet half drenched completely crazy we somehow made it to the bus stand and then to Mysore. We explored the entire city in one day and all the time I was like if this is a dream I don't want to wake up. After a troubled month this was like bliss especially to me who is a travel freak. Well if you’re thinking that there was anything romantic between us then you will be disappointed. We were just two crazy souls who liked each other’s company plus even if I did wanted to have a crush on him the fact that he called his girlfriend at least 3 times a day made me think otherwise. “Just because there is a goal keeper doesn't mean you can't make a goal!” LOL! I could have used this logic but I knew he wasn't my goal to make.

After this trip we had become pretty well acquainted and his flat was almost like mine and he was like a shadow always with me, except for work hours we were always together and at times he used to even come to my work place or I use to go to his. In a very short period of time my world started revolving around him not because I liked him or something but it feels good to have someone to take care of you in a completely new city with no friends and family.

Had I known back then how all this care and affection would end? No! Definitely I did not.

Office felt more homely than PG ever did!

As the days passed my life in PG started turning into a hell. If you are someone who needs silence to sleep then you can connect to this. I had somehow got adjusted to the creaky noise the fan made to which I could never adjust back at home.(Your mind automatically starts adjusting no matter how hard it is when it knows there is no other option)But there was no way I could adjust to being awakened at 3AM every morning.

My roommate had her shift from 5:30AM, so she used to get up at 3:00AM with her alarm buzzing out loud waking me up as well. I somehow could put up with that too but then there she was with her “I’m getting ready noises”. BANGGG!! She opened the cupboard, BANGGG!! She opened the room door, BANGGG!! She shut it back, BANGGG!! She came in again and BANGGG!! She went out; never knew why she was so BANGGY early morning!!!! And yes how can I forget her phone ringing every 10mins and her melodious voice over the call that was like Suprabhatam for me every morning. I couldn’t sleep till she left and it would always be around 5AM when she would finally be gone. So every day from 3:00AM to 4:30AM all I did was curse her and pray for some sleep to come.

Finally when sleep would come my other roommate would shoo it off with her “I’m getting ready noises” at 6:00AM and when all her banging’s would be done it’d be 7:00AM in the morning and I would have to get up and be ready to make a run to the washroom at 7:30AM.

I never fell into the typical girl category so I never understood the mentality of girls especially when it came to not being able to have a harmonious co-existence with other girls. These girls who were so sugar sweet to their boyfriends over call were hardly even close to highly adulterated honey in reality. If you are a guy and reading this then let me tell you something, if you want to know about a girl then no one can tell you better than her PG mates. I always felt majority of the girl’s population is annoying but I had not known that some of them even lacked common sense and courtesy. They had this rule that no one could use the washroom when it’s their time slot even if shit’s going to come out of a person.

I was definitely not someone who would tolerate being treated like the way I was, but I had to as I was all alone and on my own and I din wanted anymore trouble than what I already had. I kept my anger at check and avoided getting into row with the b*tches. I think one could still survive in a PG filled with a**holes if one had good roommates but to my bad luck I had really big dunderheaded dumbf*cks for my roommates. I used to try talking to them and being nice and making a conversation but yes you can’t expect senseless and retarded people to reply sensibly and reasonably. I never realised what was their problem with me. I mean was it my face or was something wrong with their brain. To my bad luck I happened to be sick one day and my bed happened to be right under the fan so every time I lowered the fan speed and slept my roommate used to get up and set it to high! This went on until one of us slept off. As a result of lack of sleep and the cold weather and waking up shivering as the fan would be set to high in my sleep, my health saw no improvement and when I could no longer take it I finally decided to take refuge at a friend’s place, even though it was too far from my office I was ready to give anything to get one night of sound sleep. It had been 15days of not being able to get enough sleep. Things just kept getting worse. To add to the annoying behaviour of PG girls, there was the owner’s wife who was no less annoying. She did not like it when I washed my clothes after 7:00PM. Like seriously?? I leave from office at 6PM and reach by 7:30PM, how on earth will i wash my clothes by 7PM? She expected me to wash clothes on weekends. I mean there were more than 20 girls in the PG and if everyone washes their clothes on weekend where are we going to put it for dry?? On her Head??

I could adjust to everything but then there was an issue with the quantity of food that I consumed. I mean it’s not my problem that I have a healthy diet and I eat good amount of rice. I had to even cut down the amount of food. One doomed evening when I was all tired from office I came to PG and thought of taking a warm head bath which I anyways couldn’t take in the morning with the time constraint. I was half way through my bath and I heard loud banging on the door. I thought there was fire or may be someone died by the intensity of the banging. But then there was my roommate there yelling from outside that she needs to take bath. I mean seriously??? I get it you need to take bath but that doesn’t mean you will keep banging the door and I will come out half-done to allow her majesty to take bath!!! I mean it was 8:00Pm she could have easily finished rest of her work like having dinner and then had a bath. But no she stood outside yelling till 8:30PM and when I came out she had got the owner to fight with me. I mean I couldn’t believe human beings could reproduce something like her. First of all I took head bath once in a week to avoid washroom clash, moreover I made sure I didn’t disturb people in the morning by taking too much time in the washroom and when all I wanted was to have a head bath in peace people couldn’t let me even have that. That was it! My limit of patience and toleration was crossed and I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore. So yes there it was the War of Titans.

With my patience gone I could no longer live in that hell hole so I started hunting for Pgs. My life for the last two weeks of the first month was all about going to office coming back washing clothes hunting PGs having dinner hunting PGs and coming back to PG by 10:00PM (time restriction) and hoping to get some sleep. Hunting PGs walking all alone through strangest routes was not easy. Even Google maps failed at times. The more I searched the shittier PGs I found. I was at the stage of my life where I wanted to give up everything and run away back to my home but I just kept going on hoping to find solace at some point. I had already given the notice in my PG and it was my last week in the PG and yet I had not found a better place. If I couldn’t find a place I would be on the streets as someone else was already coming in my place from the next month so I had no choice other than moving out.

While I was having my downs in my PG life my office life went pretty good. I’m sure I’m the first IT person to say that I loved being at office. Life in office was awesome. Every time I came back from office I used to wait for the next morning to come so getting up early didn’t feel like a great task. We had sessions occasionally and rest of the time we played dumb charades, Antakshari etc. The best part about office was that I could take naps. Rest of the time I invested in searching PGs using the company’s internet facility which was indeed meant for learning. I won’t say that I did not have any problems at office cause I had to run around the entire campus everyday may it be to get my PSID active or my bank details as no one really knew who could help me and they kept sending me form one building to another, but it didn’t bother me much cause I was pretty jobless and running here and there was more like working out which I was missing from many days. Oh yes it gets interesting now. So I always knew I looked pretty good and there were people checking me out but I was too much into my troubled life I hardly cared. Then one fine day my friend happened to text me to tell that some guy in our batch likes me and is planning to propose. I wasn’t excited even 1% as the only thing I cared about was finding a PG and getting some sleep and peace. But life didn’t stop throwing guys at me.

While I was busy browsing for PGs a guy comes up to me asking if he could use the PC for a minute as he had to check some urgent mail and I let him use it as my PG search had no end. But yes I couldn’t resist being nosy and I peeked to see what he was checking and then I got to know he was planning for CAT and for IIM Ahmedabad which was my subject of interest and so I had a little chat with him and I kind of found him funny. After that I happened to talk to him during a session and he responded enthusiastically after which we started talking a lot, a lot and a lot, we used to tease each other and I kind of felt good in his company as he always got me laughing at one or the other jokes of his, even looking at his face made me laugh at times. I never knew what was going on in his mind but I did want to know him. As days passed we became pretty good friends and went on walks around the campus. I hadn’t realised it until next few days that he started liking me but I knew i did not like him in the way he liked me, I just liked spending time with him because he used to make me laugh all the time. This was not something I asked for I din wanted him to like me, I din want to hurt anyone or break someone’s heart or lose a friend like him who got me laughing even in my troubled times so somehow I handled the situation by not spending much time with him and whatever time I did spend I spent making him understand things so he didn’t end up getting hurt. It was not easy to let go of a friend like that but I just had to.

When I somehow managed and got out of this situation, life threw yet another guy at me, when all I had asked for was to be thrown into a good PG and get some peace of mind.

First Month of Office Life! New experience!

Reaching early to office felt like a crime but yes with the washroom timings in my PG I was forced to commit the crime. My office timing was 9:30AM to 6:00PM during training but I always reached by 9:00AM (totally not me).

In my PG one washroom was shared by 8 girls in the morning, so yes you can imagine the chaos. The only time the washroom was available was before 5:30 AM and after 10:00AM.

(One had to schedule the natures call!!)

So I had to go about requesting every girl who stayed on my floor to finally get the 7:30AM slot to use the washroom. I was someone who did not like requesting people at all. So this was my first step towards compromising with my ego and going around talking to people whom I didn’t like or with whom I was least interested to interact. Well not many people will find getting up at 7:30AM a great thing to do in the morning but for a person like me who used to get up just half an hour before the school/college entry time, that too with great difficulty after my mom kicked me out of the bed (literally at times) and always ended up standing out of the class for coming late, well yes 7:30AM is a big deal.

Something my mom couldn’t do for ages PG life did to me in a day. I used to wake up at 7:00AM and keep peering through the keyhole of my room door to find if the person using the washroom is out yet so I could make a run to the washroom before someone occupied it, lucky enough my room was just opposite to the washroom. I loved the breakfast at my PG, the only good thing about the place in the morning. To add up to the washroom queue there was only one mirror hanging on the corridor wall for which again there was a huge demand so I used to glance at my reflection in the window glass of the cars that stood parked on the way to the bus stop and sometimes even styled my hair while people weren’t looking. Once or twice I forgot to notice the car had people in it, who were left wondering why I am staring at them. My company did not provide cab so I had to take the public transport. Buses from Indira Nagar to Cox Town were rare and before 10AM it was nearly impossible to get them. So tempo traveller was my means of transport. It was faster, Cheaper and better then the bus.

First day at office was boring. Same age old boring formalities went on the whole day. But Oh yes! I’m sure this part will interest you!! So i met this guy in our building and I guess he was the first guy who was worth looking at in the entire campus (no offence if you are from my batch and reading the blog). I liked his smile but then I said to myself “No girl No crushes at work place, remember you are here to work hard and be next Jeff Bezos or Mark Zukerberg or Indra Noyi”, Yeah that’s too much but my mind is a little dramatic. This was the first time I missed my friends. The jokes we cracked, the teasing each other with every guy we see, the sniggers etc. I was the only person from my college or to be precise from my city who joined the company so well I was missing my gang but yes I think I had started getting accustomed to the fact that I’m alone so it din bother me much. Then there was this Mr Fair Guy, he was a sweet person and had helped me with some uncompleted formalities. Well a few girls were going gaga over him, I never really knew why.

During lunch hour I went exploring the campus and I loved it, as I’m a lover of nature and my campus was more like a park. Thanks to the company we had free food coupon for 3 days which saved me from having PG food for lunch!! So the day was kind of okay and in the evening I took a bus back.

My PG was in Indira Nagar so you must be thinking I had an awesome life as it’s an awesome place but well the life that I had after office, was coming back to PG washing clothes, eating dinner, washing vessels and going to sleep. The Wi-Fi sucked and I missed all my Saas Bahu serials; Workouts and dancing, well i kind of gave up on it. I felt like I was living someone else’s life.

Second day again was boring. The third day following it was still boring except for one training session where a person who looked like Shahrukh Khan took the session, well he was funny and since I had not watched television for while I felt “Shahrukh Nahi tho Uska duplicate hi Sahi” and enjoyed the session. Rest of the sessions were just boring. The entire week was mundane with e-learning courses and tests (which u could retake any number of time) and then when I was all planned for a weekend I got to know there was no off on Saturday.

Well if you are still thinking about the part where I mentioned about guys well then let me tell you drop it, they were just part of my first day :D. But yes weeks ahead held lots of such stories :P.

Life in a new City!

First Day in Bangalore

For the first time in my life the train I boarded reached the destination right on time. I owe it to my father’s prayer and pujas I guess. Woke up late, thankfully the train hadn’t reached the destination so I got time to attend nature’s call (if you know what I mean), freshen up and find someone who could help me carry my luggage. Not all parents send their only daughter to a new city alone with a huge luggage for her alone to manage, but my parents did. Well this great idea of doing everything on my own was mine, as I thought its lot cheaper to travel alone. I was supposed to stay in PG and my parents coming along would be more travel and accommodation expense. My parents could have stayed at some Relatives place but my parents did not like the idea of bothering others (well I don’t share the same opinion though).

My luggage weighed more than half of my weight. Luckily I found a guy, rather slim guy in my compartment (well he was the only guy who looked decent enough) and asked if he could help me carry my luggage. I did that after thinking a lot as his slimness v/s weight of my luggage put me in a dilemma. For a moment I thought I’ll get a coolie but then when I got to know about their charges I suddenly felt my luggage was lighter than a feather. I somehow managed to get my luggage till the entrance with the help of Mr Slim Guy who seemed to have vanished before I could say thanks. While I stood at the entrance waiting for taxi or rickshaw to come by unaware of OLA and UBER( and their first free ride)Mr Slim guy appeared right before me out of the blue boarding a taxi .I walked up to him and asked

“How do you book these cabs? Will they take cash?? Or are we supposed to pay through the app wallet?”  

He said “Well I pay through Paytm”.

I had no idea about these things so I just asked him “Where are you going?” hoping our destination is same or mine is on his way so I can get a drop. But unfortunately he was heading to Vijayanagara and I wanted to go to Indira Nagar.

After waiting for a while I finally took an auto. As soon as i got into the auto the driver started talking very sweetly to me, guess he thought I was a big shot and would pay him extra for this talks. I would have preferred taking bus if my luggage did not weigh like Sumo Wrestler. The driver charged me 250Rupees! It took time to sink in that I just stepped into Bangalore did not even have my breakfast and boom 250Rupees gone. As soon as I reached my PG I got my luggage shifted to my room in the PG and asked the auto driver to wait for me so he could drop me to the nearest Apollo Clinic. My joining date was two days ahead and I was still not done with my medical tests and blahs. Thanks to god for the train was on time else it wouldn’t have been possible to do the tests on

”fasting” unless someone took my unconscious body to the clinic (It was almost more than 12 hours since anything went into my stomach).I thought dropping me to the clinic will also come within 250 but well that auto driver was smarter than me and charged me extra 25. If I was in my home town I would have given him a tough time but well I neither I had the energy nor time to argue because I knew I was going to faint the very next minute. 

Once the tests were done (to my surprise it was done quickly) I walked out of the clinic, sat on the interior stairs by the entrance (the very first place I found suitable to sit and eat) and started eating the sandwiches my mom had packed for me cause she knew I would faint before I could search for a restaurant for breakfast. So once my stomach was full and all the energy came back I walked back to PG. My room at my PG was shared by 3 people including me but since the other two had left for office I was all alone in the room. There was no TV apart from the one that was kept in the hall and it seemed to me that one needed the knowledge of electronics and physics to switch it on. As I sat silently in my room, the clouds of sadness and loneliness started surrounding me and the tears in the form of rain started pouring from my eyes and I sat there crying in my room like a baby. It was not even a day away from home and I started missing everything about home. I started missing my parents, especially the talks I used to have with them, the bickering, and the nagging tone of my mom, all of which seemed like an annoyance once was being longed for by me. To divert my mind I played movie, I played songs I started singing I tried taking a nap but nothing seemed to help. I was a pampered child. Though my parents couldn’t give me the luxuries of life they did the best to give me a great life. My mom used to do everything for me from Cooking to Washing my clothes, Cleaning the house to Washing the vessels, in short the only things I did were eating 4 times a day , Watching movies, taking naps in the afternoon , going out or spending time by painting, dancing or singing. I already started missing everything as I knew I was not going to get to go home for the next one month and never will my life go back to being the way it was, it was time i grew up.

 After crying for hours I slept off and when I woke up it was already 5:30PM and I thought ill have a cup of Tea and relax but by the time I went to the kitchen the Urn was empty except for 2 drops of tea which I thought ill save for the next girl who will come for tea (I’m a kind hearted person). So I went out to a nearest tea stall and had my cup of tea and that was one amazing tea after which I went for a walk. When I returned back I found a girl in the next room and had a bit of a chat with her. She was searching for an apartment to stay so I showed my interest in joining her in her plans. After talking to her i came back to my room and for the first time I was happy to see a human species there. After a talk with this roommate of mine I found her really weird, a weird that can be really good or a real pain in the a** so I thought to mind my own business. The room was pretty small and I couldn’t do my workouts for the day which was pretty disappointing as workouts have been very important part of my life. So I had my dinner which was provided by the PG and slept off without knowing the next day would be the first best day.

Second Day

I woke up early in the morning to find my What’sApp inbox flooded with messages. I wondered if it was my fake birthday on Facebook. Well no, it was friendship day. I met one of my friends in the afternoon spoke to him about getting me into dance class or music bands etc. He seemed to be interested in helping me, though I wasn’t sure how much he would help me in the end. Later I went to meet a relative hoping I could be a paying guest at their place because I could no longer stand the PG environment. It was just one day in PG and I already wanted to run away from there. But I came back to PG disappointed after spending a boring evening with them. It was just when I had given up the hope of the evening getting any better one of my friend from Mangalore who stayed in Bangalore texted me he is free to meet me. Well I met him and yes I had an awesome time. We went to Mantri Mall and it was the first time I ever visited that place. We played in Amoeba, had dinner at ChungWah and drank lassi in a Dabha and then he dropped me to PG at 11:00PM. Well the time restriction was 10:00PM but yeah new comer so the owner did not make an issue. Thank god I had my dinner, whatever was served for dinner at PG that night would have made me starve the whole night. So I packed my bag for next day, my first day at office and went to sleep with new hopes and expectations from life which definitely did not turn out the way I had expected.