D's Nightmare

This post is dedicated to my friend D who 2 months back went through a mentally traumatic experience in one of the retail chain stores in Bangalore. She was falsely alleged of shop-lifting but later the charges were withdrawn as there was no evidence (obviously!) and she was compensated for being harassed and traumatised and the store also apologized for their behaviour and the false accusation. It has taken both of us a lot of courage to post this. I have discussed this with her a lot and edited and re-edited many times so as to guard her identity and also of the store's which until this incident I personally thought was one of the best places to shop. Big hearted that she is, D had given them her word to not reveal their name. I hope no one has to go through what she did, but should you face false accusations of shop-lifting, I hope the below Dos and Don'ts will help you.

DO

• Cooperate with the store staff. They are just doing their jobs. Let them check things your belongings a 100 times if they want. However, please insist on being present while they check, you do not want them to plant some evidence against you.
• Reply to their questions appropriately. If they are asking a Yes/No question, answer them in Yes/No. It would look like you are doubting yourself when you are actually not if you do not answer appropriately.
• Insist on checking their evidence that they are citing to have against you.
• Stay calm.
• Declare items just as you enter the store to the security , especially clothes and certain accessories if you are carrying them in your bags in a packed state, or leave them at the baggage counter. If you must absolutely carry it in, it is better to keep the store staff informed.
• Demand for a compensation for the harassment when the matter is resolved. I am not sure if they are obliged to compensate but do not suffer all by yourself. Sometimes it helps if you give them a taste of their own medicine. :)

DON'T

• Panic.
• Get intimidated/ pressurized by the number of store staff surrounding you, the tone and volume (both sound and content) in which they are talking.
• Sign a declaration under pressure that says you have shop-lifted when you have not. It could cause serious problems for you especially if you have to travel abroad. Years back. I had to travel to Taiwan and the visa form back then had a specific question pertaining to shop lifting. Many countries may not verify the details in the visa form before issuing it but I do know many countries who perform a thorough due diligence before issuing visa. So don't get yourself into a bigger mess just to end things by signing the declaration.
• Let the store staff dominate over you. If you need to make calls for help, don’t let them prevent you
• Hesitate to inform them that you could also take them to the consumer court.
• Be in a hurry to resolve the matter in 10mins just to get out of the store. Your self-respect and reputation carefully built over years is more important than any other appointment.

This incident still bothers D. It was a very demoralizing experience for her. She is making a conscious effort to put this incident behind her. I hope and pray that time will heal everything. 

Here is another link that might help you. May or may not not be relevant in India but it surely gives some very useful information.

PS: If you can think of any other Dos or Don’t please DO share, I will update the post. I hope it will help someone someday. Please do not think such things will never happen with you. I know D is reading this- I hope I have kept my word in terms of safe-guarding identities.

The Js and Ws of WFH

I think I am a privileged one, for I am one of the very few people who might have been exposed to most forms of employment other than self-employment (which might also be on the cards sometime in future-who knows?!!).  My career (so far) in brief:

• Started off my career as a part time employee
• Moved to another company and worked on a contract at their office full-time
• Absorbed in the same company’s work-force on a full-time basis
• Moved to another company and worked on a full time basis for years
• Due to some situations, worked on a contract on a full-time basis from home in a city that is very very new to me
• Switched to another company on a full time basis and work from office

Each type of employment had its own advantages and disadvantages but most of my early career seems so distant now.  Of course, things have changed a lot since the time I took up my first job. Until about 2 months back, I was working from home for about 6 months.  It might seem exciting /thrilling/ dream-come-true to many. Not many are fans of the stress of driving to work and back home in heavy traffic (especially the Bangalore one) and many are fans of nice hot home cooked meals. It also excites many as they feel they can make a lot of time for themselves if they can save on the commuting time to and back from office. When I informed a few people that I was close to about my WFH, they were envious of me. Some even offered to swap jobs (like that is going to happen!).  I had worked from home (WFH) before on and off when I needed to but that was not on a daily basis. It used to be a welcome change for both me and my family. However, the situation is not so peachy when you have to do it for an extended period of time. Through this blog post, I just wanted to share some of my experiences so that anyone who plans on taking up WFH, can have some insight into it. This blog post lists some of the Joys (Js) and Woes (Ws) of WFH (working/work/worked (you'll have to use it in context of the sentence(:)) from home).

So, lets get started:

Js:

• You do not have the mad rush getting things ready and ensuring you have not forgotten xyz in the mornings
• Already mentioned before- no maddening traffic jams to face, no irky drivers, no haggling with auto wallahs
• Commuting time saved
• You can work in your PJs
• You can turn on the TV while working
• You can listen to music aloud as opposed to using earphones in office
• Nice hot Ghar ka Khaana (home cooked meal) which helps you in maintaining your weight
• Refrigerator is not too far away for ice-cream and snacking
• You can sit in any position of your choice while working, some days, I would lie down and work, some days sit on the chair, some days (especially the very warm ones) on the floor- the choices are just too many
• You can wait for the LPG delivery without fear of losing a cylinder and waiting for it on some other day
• You are the king/ queen of the place

(I am sure you can think of a 100 other Js.)

Ws:

• You might be the king/queen of the place, but you will be one without any subjects, totally cut-off from the rest of the world. No one other than family to discuss matters and learn from the experiences
• Technical issues- WFH can be quite stressful as well. If you have IT issues and the helpdesk is not located in the same city. Not to mention long periods of power outage. Your invertor support may run out or your internet might still not work.
• Approaching people- At work you could probably walk to a person’s desk and talk about something urgent but while WFH, you are dependent on phone and instant messaging services. Sometimes, the person you are trying to contact may not hear the phone ring (see what ear phones in offices could do to you) or may be shown as Away and it could leave you clueless on how to get in touch with this person- you would have to leave a message with 10 others to inform the person that you are looking for him/her. It is easier to locate people when you are physically situated close to them
• The ‘feel’ factor at office is often missing- you may not feel the stress, not feel the jubilation and celebration in the air while WFH which contribute a lot towards motivation and performance at least for a person like me. Those who know me well, know how fond of pulse checks I am, WFH just made it so difficult.
• I earned a great deal of appreciation for all the facilities provided to us by office to make work very smooth- be it printers, scanners, important stationery, help with filing taxes or just the courier services provided. Though I had all of these at home, I realized their value only while WFH.
• Distractions: These are our biggest attractions. It could be anything from a ring of the doorbell to IPL to ‘is it raining??- I put my clothes out to dry’…the list is endless. Though office life also comes with it is own set of distractions, I personally found the ones at home more prolonged.
• Boredom: When you are all alone working at home without anyone else to interact with and nothing but just work to do days, weeks and months together, it can get to you. It is almost like you are in a solitary confinement

(Surely there could be more Ws too but these were the major ones for me.)

If you noticed, the Ws were more elaborate than the Js. It could be because the Ws weighed me down a lot. Being in a new city, having no friends to speak to in person (atleast not in the vicinity), and not being aware of the places that hold your interests to visit every time you feel bored and having the initial dependency on your family (being very very independent in the city I lived before), made it more difficult for me to enjoy the WFH thoroughly.  My verdict from the experience I have had- WFH is a good thing if you can do it once in a while or when you need to (for some it could still be a daily basis- if there is a need to pick up your kids from some place during the regular work hours, for example). For the policy-makers in companies- please do include WFH in your policies. It is a non-monetary benefit for employees. For everything else, my vote would definitely be with working from office. 

A glimpse of my workstation from my last workplace (prior to the current one).There is a picture of a castle I drew and a lovely picture of cherry blossoms sent by a Japanese colleague. Some other knick-knacks- all presents.

Another view of my workstation. Notably, you can see the gift wrap from secret Santa and also packaging from Flipkart. It was a shipment of DVDs and books for my Christmas vacation and some coffee mugs carrying routine office stationery and some more  knick-knacks.

A picture of my home office cum study. Shared it with R.

A Walk through the Lane: My moment of Courage

It was evening time. I was lost in my own thoughts while walking homeward through some lanes. I heard some soft humming close to me. I ignored and continued walking. In sometime, I heard the sound of feet shuffling very close to me and when I looked, there was a little girl who was trying to stick close to me. I asked her what the matter was. 

'Can you take me with you?' she said. I was quite surprised to hear this from a total stranger (no matter how little!).

'Take you where?', I asked.

'Oh, not too far, just at the end of this lane.', she said. The lane would end in just 10 metres.

'Well, it is so close. Why don't you go yourself? Why do you want to come with me?', I asked.

'Oh, because there is a big dog sleeping on the road and I am afraid of it.', she said.

I smiled to myself and asked her to join me and we walked such that I was closer to the dog and she did not appear in the field of vision of the dog. I walked past calmly while the little girl stole a few glances at the dog. 

When we reached the end of the lane, she thanked me and skipped happily towards her destination. Little did she know of my own extreme and terrible fear towards all animals, or how my heart palpitated while walking past the place where the dog was lying. I maintained my calm externally. This was my moment of courage (however silly one might find it to be! It is not easy most of the time to face one's fears).

A Trip to Remember

"Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life." - Michael Palin

....and such were our thoughts as we hopped happily from shore to shore early May in 2013. Though the objective of our trip was not really to enjoy the sands and seas but when you are travelling along the coast, you cannot but help yourself to a dip in the cool waters and loiter on some of the sun drenched beaches of Western coast of India.

We arrived at Manipal at about 8:30am from Hyderabad. After a quick breakfast at our uncle's home, we set out for some work which was also a part of our objective for the trip. After we got back home and enjoyed a delicious meal prepared by aunt, we headed off for a siesta...which ended up being much longer than a siesta is supposed to be. Anyway, we got ready and took a tour of the adjoining city of Udupi. We also went to the Venkatramana temple at Kalyanpur, which is supposed to be a branch of the same temple in Karkala. We got back home to a sumptuous dinner and also had a chance to savour the mangoes from the tree in the front yard. We then enjoyed chit chat at the terrace before finally hitting the sack to prepare for an early morning the following day.

The following day, we headed off towards Ankola in uncle's car. We took many stopovers before we finally arrived at Ankola. The first stopover was the polling booth, for it was voting day for Karnataka legislative assembly. When uncle and aunt returned to the car after casting their votes and began our sojourn, the discussions revolved around politics, outcome of the elections, next year's general elections etc and when we saw beautiful landscapes, parallels were being drawn to Scotland and also aunt and mum-in-law got very nostalgic about their trip to the United Kingdom. Thus chattering we arrived at the Marvante beach which was at its peaceful best. The beach was devoid of people and we enjoyed soaking our feet in the cool waters on a very warm day. It was beautiful and peaceful and was lined by just 2-3 shop shacks which uncle and aunt tagged as 'Our 5 star hotel'. We enjoyed sweet coconut water from tender coconuts and also got some groundnuts from this 5 star hotel. We continued the journey and soon arrived at the Byndoor beach by a Shiva temple. The soil on the Byndoor beach is quite firm and does not leave the sandy residue on one's feet that is often the case while soaking in the waters by the beach. There are some nice rocks by the Byndoor beach which adds a lot of value to the already beautiful beach BUT quite slippery. Unfortunately, I had a slip there and the waters of the sea washed over our camera rendering it incapable of doing what it was designed for. I soon got back on my feet and headed to the temple and sought blessings to avoid such occurrences again during our trip and the God, cheerfully granted us his blessing. It was close to lunch time and we realised how hungry we were just soaking at the sea and bathing in the sun. The beauty of interwebs is an amazing thing. We started discussing the beauty of the coast and one thing led to another and we started discussing food and we did so even as we arrived at RNS Highway Hotel in Murudeshwar and up until the food arrived. Probably the only way we could keep quiet about food was by actually eating it. There was a little pup by a potted plant and my husband took a fond liking towards it and would have enjoyed some time playing with it but it turned out that it was more keen on its rest.

Marvante Beach

Byndoor Beach

All full and happy, we set out again and thought we would visit the beautiful Murudeshwar temple. It turned out it was the resting time for the Gods of the temple and hence closed. We however, drove around the temple and enjoyed the beautiful and tall Shiva statue and a very high Gopur and headed off to Kumta to meet a few relatives who have settled there. 

Temple at Murudeshwar

Murudeshwar Temple

We are people from South Canara and it is unusual for our families to settle in North Canara but on arriving at their place, we realised why they would do so. We visited R's grandpa's sister's place. She is 85 and walks with the support of a stick but very active nonetheless. She had prepared delicious sheera and pakodas to welcome us. Her family and she live in a beautiful old-fashioned house which has been renovated with all the modern facilities and amenities by the river Agnashi. It has an old-world charm to it. The house - a river-front, has a beautiful rose garden to welcome visitors. There is a small temple and a mill (their business) by one side of their home. On the other side, a boat building was going on. There are some ferries that take people across the other side of the river. It was pure joy for us- the city dwellers but they did discuss their share of troubles. Like they say- Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The other attraction here for R in particular, was Chikoo- the ferocious looking 12 year old German shepherd. He and Chikoo took an instant liking towards each other and had a quiet conversation on their own. After having a lovely time at Kumta, we headed of Ankola temple- Shri Lakshmi Narayan Mahamaya. We stayed at the temple quarters in Ankola. At night, we had the opportunity of witnessing the Palanquin Utsav where the temple deity was taken around in a palanquin and were offered prayers on its way. We then had a much needed dinner at the temple premises and headed off to bed.

Boat Building in Kumta

Roses on the right. Front-view of river Agnashi

The following day, our main destination was the Sri Shanteri Kamakshi Ramanathi temple in Ponda, Goa. We started off quite early in the morning following breakfast to the temple. I was dressed in a saree with customary wedding jewellery. We arrived there by 11:30am and offered our prayers. The temple was unusually crowded on account of a wedding that was taking place in the premises of the temple. There were some people bursting crackers in the premises too. It was a little annoying but we were happy that we met one of the objectives of the travel. It was lunch time by then and as usual, the stomach people were knocking on its doors. We went to the temple canteen and had some meal but it did not satiate us, or stop us. We continued our journey and went to Cancona's Palolem beach. I could change from the saree to something more comfortable at one of the changing rooms there. Since it was mid-day and also peak of summer, taking a dip at the sea was completely ruled out. We placed ourselves at a beach facing shack like restaurant and viewed the sea while quenching our thirst with icy cool drinks. R also bought a bright yellow souvenir t-shirt for himself with a picture of an elephant on it. He was grumpy from the time we left the temple canteen at Ponda all the way through Palolem but his purchase cheered him considerably and he was quite chirpy for the rest of the day. 

From Cancona, we soon arrived at Karwar. We would have loved to eat at the popular Amruth Family Restaurant but due to the announcement of the results of elections, this place was advised to stay closed. We went to another place called Poornima close to Amruth. Here, our orders were taken by a female waiter- a rare sight in India especially in small restaurants in small towns of the county. It seemed to take forever for our order to arrive and when it did, we just leapt on the food and gobbled as fast as we could to answer some very important questions raised by Mr. Hunger. Now, Poornima is a very run down place and I saw a few cats taking a tour of the dining room. I only hoped that the cats were not being raised there for some specific purpose pertaining to some form of kitchen nuisance. After surrendering to the conditions but enjoying the food, we proceeded to Karwar Beach. We enjoyed ourselves at the calm and polite waters at the Karwar Beach which apparently also represents the nature of the locals. We enjoyed the beautiful sunset at Karwar. It was really lovely but some clouds did try their best to block our view. A very cool breeze was blowing by the beach and came as a welcome relief from the cruel, humid summer. Following this, we returned to Ankola and after ablutions, had a wholesome dinner at the temple and a good night's sleep.

Me at Karwar

The following day, we rose early yet again. After prayers and breakfast at the temple, we started towards a beautiful island. I do not wish to reveal the name of the place as it still quite untouched by tourism but for the sake of convenience, I will call it MK island. So, we arrived at the little MK island on a boat from a place close to Kundapur. We visited the Durga Parameshwari temple there and had bananas and one of the best lemonades ever prepared by the family of the priest. It is a rare privilege and we cherished it thoroughly. We then hired a boat and went around the island and lapped up all the scenic beauty of the place. It was simply breath-taking. We waved at some children by the shore and felt good whenever they reciprocated. 

View of MK Island

View of MK Island

View of MK Island

View of MK Island

View of MK Island

The tour on the boat lasted an hour and we wished it did not end.  Once back at the place we first boarded the boat, we started going towards a special place in Kundapur- Shetty Lunch Home. Now, before we got into the ferry to MK island, aunt had called up Shetty Lunch Home to place an order for their specialty- Chicken Ghee Roast. It is very important to place an order at least an hour before so that they can serve it to you as soon as you arrive, else, there is an hour's waiting time at the minimum. It seems the chicken is marinated only when an order is placed and takes a long time for the marinated chicken to rest. I guess, people like to adopt weird strategies when it comes to their quick-selling specialties. Anyway, we were served the dish soon after we arrived. R enjoyed the chicken bursting with ghee. I, being a vegetarian, opted for the Gobi Ghee Roast but was not really impressed with it and found it way too salty and spicy to my liking. We then went to Ideal Ice Creams to soothe my tongue burnt with the spicy ghee roast. The choco-nut bar did its job as a fire-fighter very well. We again hopped into the car to head towards our next destination- Malpe beach.

R in the t-shirt from Cancona, outside Shetty Lunch Home in Kundapur

Malpe beach was very crowded place and also offered a lot of water sporting options and para-sailing. After our Mauritian experience with para-sailing, R and I were not very impressed with what was being offered at Malpe for para-sailing or other water sports. It came no where close to what we experienced previously. We opted for a doubles- ride though, on the water scooter. It was high tide at the time and the waters quite choppy but we managed to enjoy the ride. The 'pillion' rider needs to cling quite tightly to ensure their security as there is every possibility of being thrown into the sea in choppy waters. I only wish, that the people conducting the rides had a bit more concern for the safety of others at the beach and not of only those who are booking their rides. We again witnessed the sunset at Malpe beach and left for Manipal. After ablutions, we again enjoyed a nice home-cooked meal by aunt, ice-cream and the mangoes from the front yard. We also enjoyed 2 old English classics- The Old Man and the Sea and Some Like it Hot (partially)  from uncle's huge collection of movies and went to bed.

At Malpe Beach- Can you spot us? Clue: Water scooter

Next morning, we were up early to visit my mum-in-law's uncle and aunt in an ashram in Surathkal- Ajja  and Mamama. Ajja is about 96 and Mamama a few years younger. They spoke to us about their lives in Karkala and how they were spending their time at the ashram. They lit up our hearts with their cheerfulness. It made us realise how easy it is to be happy with simplicity. After spending time with them for an hour-hour and a half, we left for Manipal. 

Ajja-R-Mum-in-law-Mamama

On arriving, we quickly packed our bags as this was our last day of the entire trip and time to go back to Hyderabad. We then had a quick lunch and completed watching Some Like it Hot. By the time the movie ended, it was time for us to leave. 

We learnt a lot on the trip about our culture and establishment of temples. Being GSB Konkanis, we usually mingle amongst other GSB Konkanis of South Canara. On this trip, we had a glimpse of other non- GSB Konkanis of Karnataka and all types of Konkanis Goa in terms of lifestyle and differences in our cultures and languages. It was also strange, especially coming from Hyderabad, to see people unknown to each other communicate with one another in Konkani. It is a very very rare sight and hence, quite strange. 

We left bidding adieu to uncle, aunt and Manipal, knowing that we would be returning sometime soon and creating newer memories to cherish.