Bouquet

The other day, when I had to leave Delhi for Bangalore, my client gave me a small farewell - where I was presented with a memento and bouquet. The memento was gift wrapped so I did not open it and put it away in my bag. The bouquet was exquisitely made with different kinds of flowers, ribbons and various other things. It looked very pretty.

I took my bag, purse and scooped up the bouquet in my hands as I walked out of the client's office. The moment I stepped on the road I saw strangers looking at me. I realized it was more towards the bouquet, rather than me! The huge, beautiful bouquet attracted people's attention towards it and then towards me.

A bouquet symbolizes that the person carrying it is either very important or has achieved something substantial or is carrying it to present it to somebody important or successful. The bouquet provides a personality which nothing else can give.

Bouquets evade our life at almost every occasion. On birthdays, marriages, marriage anniversaries, inaugurations, felicitations, farewells and many other occasions its the perfect gift to give. While visiting a patient, one may carry a bouquet (provided hospital administration permits), which will fill the white/green hospital rooms with vibrant colors. Bouquets are also given at funerals. The color, vibrancy and size of the bouquet is varied appropriately as per the occasion.

A bouquet full of beautiful flowers, leaves and other natural ingredients juxtaposed against man-made articles like ribbons, baskets etc. provides a very fresh and colorful picture. It showcases how natural beauty can be enhanced through different arrangements and man-made additions.

While I was carrying the bouquet that day to home, I picture how it would look the next day. The flowers would wilt away and the ribbons, baskets etc would go limp without the flowers. Flowers are the main character of the bouquet. A single rose flower, draped in a foil or plastic and tied with a red ribbon packs in more emotion and passion than any other gift would.

Bouquets are beautiful indeed!!!

Bangalore!!!

We have been in Bangalore from 9th April 2012. My husband has got an admit to the EPGP course at IIM-B, which started from 16th April. It has been more than 15 days here and we have settled down very quickly. The accommodation has been provided by the Institute and all things are included in the course fees. I have traveled to some places in Bangalore and I have loved the city very much.

The weather is very pleasant in Bangalore and the Bangaloreans say that this has been the hottest summer. Coming from NCR/Delhi, I am loving the weather. I havent yet experienced the traffic yet, which is the sole pain in the neck in Bangalore. But what I have seen is the probable reason for traffic - the width of the road. In Bangalore major roads are as wide as a small lane outside my parent's home in Mumbai! With such narrow roads, there is bound to be traffic jams all over the place. The other day, while I was waiting at the bus-stop on a similar two lane major road, a truck had failed bang in the middle of the road and there were huge traffic snarls on both the sides.

Bangalore authorities should work on a two-pronged strategy to reduce the traffic:

1. Undertake road - widening on major roads
2. Disallow vehicles with single commuters - fine heavily if such vehicles are found. This would not ease the traffic but also reduce some pollutants and give the left-over greenery some space to breathe in the oxygen.

Most of the people understand Hindi and some English words, so communication has not been a major problem. There are some instances when communication is a problem, but people go out of their way to understand through hand sign or by getting someone who knows the language. My maid understands Hindi, but cant speak it - so was I told. One day I asked her to change her timings to 6 am instead of 8 am. Next day, she came at 8 am. Again I told her that this was late and that she had to come at 6 am. Next day she again came at 8 am. Now I was exasperated and called up dad, who knows speaking in Kannada, to find the phrase "Come from 6 am tomorrow". Dad told me the phrase and also said that he shall speak to her on phone and explain. She again came at 8 am but had another maid with her. This second maid understood and could speak in Hindi. She clarified what I wanted and explained to my maid. Next day onwards she has been coming at 6 am. I love this enterprising spirit of the people here.

Bangalore promises to be a very vibrant, green and enterprising city, looking forward for an eventful stay here!!!

The Walk

Today I had gone to Core House, which is Professor Sunil Handa's office. it is a seven storey building in gray with dark glasses. we had gone there for our last session of LEM over there. While returning back I thought why not take a walk back to college. I had walked back half the distance two-three times before so thought I would do this as well. Ofcourse i had no idea how much time it would take but I was in no hurry to get back to campus! I guessed it would take half an hour or so.

On leaving the compund, I turned to left and walked down the road. A nice small clean road. At its perpendicular road I turned to right. There I observed one strucure which was constructed very differently. I guess it must be a Vimal Patel structure, as it was in concrete with the curves. It was done very beautifully. Cars were parked infornt of the structure. I could not find out what it was used for, just by observing! Another lane another building. This too had very different structure and was colourful as well. this was when i started comparing buldings in Mumbai and Ahmedabad. In Ahmedabad the buildings are very colorful and also the shapes of the structures are very different, which is not the case in Mumbai. Then I realised that even in Surat, the buildings were very colourful and and of different shapes. So what is that which makes the architecture of a region fundamentally different from that in another state? Is it due to the culture of the people? Is Mumbai more business-minded than Ahmedabad or Surat? Do people in Surat enjoy having pleasure with business? I will have to study the cultures more closely to be able to comment on it. Perhaps it is the state culture.

On the way there were earthern ware vendors with beautiful diyas and pots. Had they come only for Diwali or are they here always? I think I have seen them before as well, so they are here permanantly. So many buyers were flocking there to check out the diyas and buy them. Then there were so many common place shops, like kirana stores with notices like 'Goods once sold will not be taken back'. The store owner looked unfazed whether his store would survive or not, while we at our B-school spend hours discussing and preparing reports on modern retail gobbling up kirana stores. Do we really understand the ground reality? Are we relying too much on theories rather than checking the reality?

Well I started writing this post a long ago, but finished it in bits and pieces. I dont remember much of the rest of the walk, however it was few of the pleasantest moments I had. I was alone to reflect on things and observe things. I could enjoy the common life which people live outside our hallowed campus walls. Well such is the human nature, one loves and wants what one does not have and once we have it, we want some other thing. And life goes on!

Jinxed post

I was trying to write a post on the Ganesh Festival we celebrated at our campus. I wrote it almost entirely yesterday night, did the 'save as draft' and went off to sleep.In morning to my surprise and shock I found that there was no draft saved. I again wrote the whole thing.. half way through I was wondering how to add photos, one click on the 'back' button and the whole post disappeared again. Can somebody help me? The help function does not help. Guess the post is jinxed and am not to post it!!

Back at the campus

After two months of summer internship, am back at the campus..to my old dorm, room, friends, mess, campus and everything.
Time flys by so very fast. As I was setting up my room I realised I had covered two calender pages!!!two months just gone by!!
Some ten more odd months to go, and then am back to the real world..
No this is a point of debate, how does one define the real world?Some feel this is the real world, some feel the other way.
But for me the real world is outside the campus!

My first post!

Many questions and many ideas.What to write?How do I write it well?Should I first put in this or should I first put in that?

This is like a new noteboook back in school days, neatly labelled and covered and wondering for which subject should I use this notebook.

In four more days I will embark on another phase of life, the second year at IIMA. A year down the line, I will be one of those chosen 300-odd MBAs from the premier B-school in India.

So presently am just looking at starting with the second year.Fourth term begins.