Another day with a pair'a'dice

As it always does, the new year has come around again. This year began, like many years have begun in the past, with no one actually sure when the year came around. So, we did the "Happy New Year" bit twice. Once straight up, and once with a count-down (although I am pretty sure the New Year had actually come and gone!). The party was at a friend's place. I am sure that if we had gone to one of the more fancy, 'organised', parties, we might have had a DJ or MC counting down for us. That would still have been no guarantee that the time would have been correct.

But now is the time for reflection. In short, the time has come to deal with the crisis of identity and destination once again. More plainly: Who am I and Where am I going?

My wife asks me every new year if I have made any resolutions. I steadfastly answer that I have not, and nor am I planning to. This for some reason seems to infuriate her. But I am not trying to be difficult. It just seems a pointless waste of time for me to make resolutions, when there are such bigger questions to ask. Are we alone in the Universe? Is the kettle boiling? Has George Bush made up a mind (since he doesn't have one of his own)? And most importantly, what am I going to eat for dinner?

You may think I am being flippant, and rightly so. I am being flippant. The last year has taught me one thing: Whatever you expect to happen may or may not happen, but you can be sure that things you didn't even realise might happen, do happen.

A year ago, today, my life was very different. My wife and I were in jobs different from the ones we are in right now; today she is on the verge of quitting, and I am disenchanted with my boss. Good friends we had, good friends we lost. People we thought we could rely on weren't there, and the people we didn't realise were there, suddenly came through. Old friends reconnected, some after so many years, that meeting them again was an adventure in itself.

Whatever the new year brings for me, I can be sure of one thing - keeping on my feet is going to be no less difficult than in the past, just different, in ways I can hardly fathom.

Every year, it comes around and each year I react somewhat similarly and somewhat differently. This year, on my birthday (which was yesterday), I was in my most blah mood.

Why? Because I had been working on the weekend before. Yes, Saturday and Sunday. So instead of feeling lazy, relaxed or (god-forbid) happy, I woke up on Monday morning, despairing the fact that my birthday was likely to be not-so-much-fun.

So, I woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head... Looking up I realised I was late, and rushed to work.

After a dull, dragging day at work, I got home, and found candles, and home made cake and Grover Washington Jr on the stereo, and A dressed up gorgeously (in only the way she can), and almost (though not quite) immediately, I felt happier. It was my birthday after all.

We didn't go out for dinner, like we thought we might. We didn't have friends over, like we often do. But somehow, feeling relaxed after a tense week(end) and day, remembering the good things of life, I feel that I had a birthday I could remember after all!

And I can still dream about beaches of Goa for my next birthday, can't I?

Well, the weekend was upon me and gone before I knew it. Working Saturdays tend to do that! But we tried to enjoy ourselves on Sunday by getting a DVD of Friends from our local rental, and then ordering Pizza.

So, Domino's picks up the phone and I place my order (Pepperoni and Cheese - yum!). Unfortunately they don't deliver to our place, and since I don't feel like ordering from elsewhere, I decide to go pick it up while I'm picking up some beer. (Why don't we have beer delivery guys by the way? Separate topic though!)

A little while later they call back to say No pepperoni, no spicy chicken, only BBQ chicken. So I ask them to put extra jalapenos on top, and that I would be there in 10 minutes.

So I get out the car, drive down in the rain, pick up the beer and park in front of Domino's 20 minutes later. This should be a simple task. I'm already 10 minutes late, so all I need to do is dash in, grab the pizza, pay the guy and dash out again - Friends here I come!

Of course, real life has a way of disappointing you sometimes. I was asked to wait for 2 minutes, the pizza was ready and needed to be taken out of the oven. 5 minutes later, I was told the same thing. In fact, 20 minutes later, I got so fed up, I left without the pizza and being my optimistic self, drove to the next Domino's outlet.

When I got there, and this was only 9pm, I was told that they only had Chicken Kheema, which I despise - who eats Kheema on a Pizza for God's Sake!

So I left Domino's to it's own miseries and crossed the road to US Pizza, which told me that they hadn't got Pepperoni, and I didn't want their other Pizzas which were pretty much Tandoori food on a Pizza. (I mean if I want Tandoori food, I'd eat Tandoori - why would I want it on my Pizza?)

So then I head to Pizza Hut, which thank heaven's has got Pepperoni. I promptly bang down my money and am told that it would take another 20 minutes for the Medium Pepperoni and Cheese pizza to get ready. 30 minutes later, the guy brings it out.

Sorry Sir, we ran out of Medium Pizza base, so I've made 2 personal pan pizzas for you instead.

Oh well, at least two small pizzas is better than no pizza at all. (Although not really what I wanted!)

So how difficult is it to get a Pizza in this city? Something good, and hot and fast? Or if you have a secret to getting your pizza, do let me know.

I got a new job! Yes Yes! Ra Ra!

... and all that jazz.

And before you ask, I like it. I like it a lot.

But...

and here's the big but(t?) :

I have a team of twelve to manage. Which in itself isn't so bad, but the guy who was leading the team before I joined is now to be my subordinate!

Hoo boy!

And then the big bang! He's quit!

Possibly not because of me, but still - what does that mean for the rest of the team. Within a month they go from interacting with a guy they've known for over a year, to a new guy, with new ideas, who speaks a different geek-speak from them.

Yea, verily the alien has landed.

Leaving a job after four years is difficult. You get used to the people, the places, the things. (Hist: The things are also people. Okay okay, the people, the places, the... other... people! For reference read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!)

The company I work for is on the verge of shutting shop, so I'm out looking for a new job. That's not necessarily too hard for a techie in Bangalore. Maybe I should write my own song Ah'm a techie, Ah'm a techie, in Bangalore *grin*.

But it's still scary. It's a cold world out there... okay, not because Bangalore temperatures seem to be reaching boiling point - but you know what I mean!

Now, of course, you're saying - Ah! he's using humour as an antidote to tension. Too true.

I'm tense because I'm looking for a new job. I'm tense because I'm leaving a place I've worked at for four years and I've had good times there (bad times too, but let's not talk about that on my blog!). I'm tense because A is giving me these dirty looks (quickly hidden) which say something like 'I told you to change your job long ago, I never liked your boss anyway!'. I'm tense because I don't adapt well to change - it's not that I can't cope. Of course I can cope, but it's not easy. And to top it off, I'm not a natural extrovert. So I have to make an effort every time I need to meet or talk to someone I don't meet regularly. And of course, when you're job hunting, you need to meet and talk and interact with a bunch of strangers! Wow! Whatafunthing I hear you extroverts out there going! But not for me, you see.

So while the going is good, I hope to wheedle out every ounce of sympathy from anybody who is willing to give it - and a job at the end of it, I hope!

Here I am in Dubai. Or rather, I have been in Dubai for the last ten days on work. But it seems like I've not left home (Bangalore)!

I get off the flight and the immigration officer at passport control speaks to me in Hindi, the cab drivers pushing and shoving to get my attention are speaking Hindi. I walk into the hotel and the receptionist and the manager are speaking in Malayalam. The room next to mine seems to have Tamil music on at top volume. Everyone seems to speak an Indian language, even the Arabs themselves!

Where have I come, I think to myself!

But the comparison doesn't end there. Especially when you know what Bangalore is like nowadays. Two words! Traffic Jams.

With endless road improvement and a huge number of new complexes coming up, it feels just like home. In fact, two hour commutes to work (in Jebel Ali) are the norm rather than the exception.

But there are differences. The primary one being cleanliness. For a city in the middle of a desert you might expect it to be dirtier, but it's quite clean, except in certain parts where the red tobacco stains line the walls! The other is the obvious wealth. Ferrari's and Porche's are seen regularly, while the idea of a small car is a Hyundai Accent!


There are the obviously beautiful things too, like the Dubai creek, which you can see above. But then you have the really, really weird. At the Mall of the Emirates - a new shopping mall designed to look somewhat like a Middle-Eastern palace - you will find a ski-slope! In the middle of a desert country! But that's not the weirdest. The weirdest thing about this, is that the ski slope is the shiny metal structure sticking out of the palace building, complete with changing lights! You can't see the lights in the picture, but trust me, it looks like Steven Spielberg crossed with Lawrence of Arabia!



But I still miss my home. I still have another 4 days to go, but I am counting down the days!