39:00

That's how many minutes I took to complete the 5.6 km run for the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge Event. It's about two and a half minutes more than my last year's time. Naturally I was disappointed as I hoped I could improve on my last year's performance. But I guess I kind of expected this result - I hardly trained for the run this time, and I think I had a bad lunch before the run - I should have just stuck to some soup or something instead of having that prata and following it with an icecream cake. I started feeling pain in my stomach after running just 2 km. After that I could never really take off - I was walking a few times in between. I do believe though that if I had run all the way, there was a good chance I could have bettered my 2007 result by a minute at least. Oh well - next year I guess.

What's wrong with people?

I was going to continue my series of blogs on our Ho Chi Minh City trip, but for the past few days, something's been bothering me so much that I have to break the flow and pen it down. The past 1 week at work has been torturous to say the least. I have experienced emotions of frustration, sadness, disgust and ghastliness in my dealings with people around me.

At work, I am surrounded with people who have no motivation to work, who work only because it is a means of income and nothing more than that - they don't derive any happiness or sense of satisfaction in what they do everyday. There is absolutely no drive or passion. All they care about is money and how they can get away with avoiding work as much as possible. And this is true not only with people at my level but also among my superiors. If managers are going to set such example, then how the heck do they expect people under them to respect them or work with any motivation or integrity? So many of the superiors that I have worked with know only how to delegate with no sense of guidance or responsibility - all they care is that for every task there is a "face" assigned - doesn't matter whether that person assigned is even qualified to do it or knows how to do it. It's pathetic to say the least. And people who suffer under these superiors have a universal lack of courage to speak out - no one seems to say anything to their managers - everyone likes to whine and complain how they are being treated unfairly, but no one will talk it out with the managers. In all meetings, formal or informal, that I have been part of which involves managers, I never see people open their mouth to say what's actually the right thing to say. They just sit mum. And then later they will complain. I mean how in the world do they think their grievances will be addressed if they don't even open their mouth?

Over the three and a half years here, I have felt that people's priorities here are just messed up. It's either about all materialistic things or it's about working until you die. What about people, relationships, friendship? Do they not matter at all? Do only the latest gadgets and a big bonus matter? What about passion, motivation and drive? What about something personal, other than work? Something that you do just for yourself? What about believing in what you feel is right and talking about it? What's wrong with people?

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Trip - Day 2 (5th April 08)

Our original plan for the day was to go to this beach near Saigon called Vung Tao. This required us to wake up early and get going. But we got lazy and decided to wake up only around 8:30am. By the time we got ready and left the hotel, it was about 9:15am. We inquired at the hotel about Vung Tao and got to know that it was actually quite far from Saigon - about 1.5 hours of ferry ride from Saigon river. We decided to discuss about this over breakfast at the same restaurant where we had dinner last night. On our way to the Bi & Bee Saigon restaurant, we saw a tours & travel agency that was offering day trips to Mekong data. We stopped by at the place to inquire more about that trip and then proceeded for breakfast with a brochure for that trip.

The breakfast menu was as impressive, if not more, as the dinner fare last night. There was traditional Vietnamese, English, even Mexican! We decided to order mixed vegetable scrambled eggs, an English breakfast and bread with peanut butter. This was accompanied by tea and coffee. Needless to say, the food was sumptuous. The peanut butter was yummy and the scrambled eggs were very uniquely done with vegetables like green peppers, mushrooms, onions and tomatoes. Nirva's English breakfast looked impressive as well. The tea was especially tasty and we were quite intrigued by the container in which the coffee was served - it had a mini filter at the top from where coffee would drip down. What a perfect start to the day-:). And all this cost us only 6 USD!

Over breakfast, one of the owners of the restaurant confirmed our suspicion that going to Vung Tao might not be a great idea - not only was it very far, but the heat would make it oppressive. Besides the owner was of the opinion that the Mekong delta tour would be more value for money and would offer pretty much the same scenery to view. So we bid adieu to the empty breakfast plates and the owner, and went straight to the travel agency we had gone to half an hour ago. We confirmed our 1 day trip of Mekong delta for the next day. It cost us 18 USD together and we were asked to come to the agency doorsteps at 7:45am in the morning since the tour began at 8am.

This meant that we had the whole day "free and easy". We decided to hit the Ba Thanh market first, since we had seen the night version of the same the previous evening. We intended to buy most of the souvenirs and gifts on the day itself since we might not have the luxury to come back to the market again in the next 2 days. One thing I must mention is the oppressively hot weather - the sun was beating down upon us from 9 am onwards and it was really unbearable. On the way to the market, we passed a shop selling musical instruments. I have been interested in buying a guitar for purely recreational purposes (since I have had no prior training in how to play it) and I did not want to spend a bomb trying to fulfill my desire. This shop offered beginner's acoustic guitars at just 250,000 Dong - that's just 16 USD!!! Even though I still had a doubt if I was wasting money, Nirva was adamant that I buy the guitar because there could not have been a cheaper deal. I knew what she said was true, but since we didn't want to carry the guitar into the crowded market, we decided to buy it on the way back.

We finally reached the Ben Thanh market at about 11am. It was inside a building with lanes and lanes of shops offering a variety of goods and items with very little space to walk around. We had been told that we should bargain big at the shops there - go down to at least 50% of the price that the shopkeepers quote. So armed with knowledge and with a list of things we wanted to buy, we started our mission. First stop was at a t-shirt shop where I bought a couple of vietnam t-shirts for 3 USD. From there we moved on into the maze to a shop that was selling wooden items, suitable for gifts and souvenirs. We decided to buy in bulk at the shop to get a good bargain. So we bought key chains, coasters, a beautiful tray (for Nirva's mom), and some figurines depicting vietnamese people. All in all, we got a good bargain after a few minutes of haggling. After this we proceeded to a shop that was selling these plates made with bamboo with beautiful hand-made paintings on it. We really wanted to buy one plate for ourselves to decorate our own house (when we have one of ours). And I knew that my bhabhi would like such a plate as a gift since she is a very avid art appreciator. So we bought 2 plates which costed us about 40 USD. It did seem expensive at that time but the next day we found out we had paid less than half of what such things were selling outside. By this time, the heat and lack of space inside the market was really exhausting us and we decided to catch a break by having coconu water. A few relaxed minutes later we decided to continue our shopping escapade. We bought some more coasters as gifts for Nirva's two sisters and a miniature boat carved beautifully in wood especially for Urvi. The final purchase we made before calling it an "exhausted" afternoon were a couple of t-shirts from the first shop we went to, for Nirva's dad. The time was 12:30 pm and the heat outside seemed to have intensified exponentially.

We decided that we surely needed a break and possibly couldn't continue our exploration of the city with so many bags in hand. We had to put all the bags in our hotel room, take a breather and then set out again. On the way back, we went to the guitar shop again, but the young man who had attended to us previously had apparently gone to school and we were not comfortable getting the guitar from someone else. So we decided to buy the guitar on one of the remaining days when the person was there in the shop. We rushed back to our hotel and felt positively thankful to be back inside our room. While resting, we arrived at our next course of action - to visit the Emperor Jade Pagoda before heading back to our favorite place to have lunch. We took a taxi from outside the hotel and gave the taxi driver the written address of the Pagoda location, since he did not understand English. We arrived outside the Pagoda about 10 minutes later - the fare cost us about 48000 Dong. The main pagoda building was pretty small in size but there were some gignatic statues inside. We saw a few people lighting incense sticks and worshipping inside. Overall, we did not really find it as good as it was made out to be. A couple of photos later, we had hired another taxi to take us back to the hotel so that we could go for our lunch.

This time we didn't really enjoy the food that much - not because it wasn't good, but we were just way too tired with the heat not making things any easier. There were two interesting dishes that we tried - Vietnamese vegetarian pancake and fried icecream with banana. We finished yet another inexpensive lunch and decided to press on to other tourist attractions in Saigon. First on our list was the Independence or Reunification Palace. With a map of the city centre we tried to get our bearings right and go in the correct direction. Along the way we were constantly disturbed by over-eager rickshaw drivers who pestered us to take a ride in their rickshaw to our target location. We tried to refuse politely but after a while it did start to get on our nerves since they would just not leave us alone. Finally we got rid of them and reached the road that had the palace according to the map. We walked along trying to look for the place when a coconut vendor offered to help us point in the correct direction. He walked along with us a for a few minutes and then suddenly gave us a coconut saying that "it's from him". We protested that we didn't want it but he kept on insisting. We thought that it was a such a noble gesture, so we must reward him, but when we gave him 5000 Dong as token, he started asking for more, quoting a price of his own. We were shocked - because we didn't even want the coconut. We paid him another 10000 Dong and learned the lesson of not falling into such traps from now on. We went inside a building ground and were soon asked to leave by one of the folks there since it was not the Independence Palace we were looking for. Finally, after few more minutes of walking and searching, we reached the main gate of the Palace - it was about 3:40pm and the Palace was open only until 4pm. So we decided that it was not worth spending 30000 Dong to go inside the palace when only 20 minutes of visiting time was left. We decided to return to the palace on the last day of our stay.

Our next destination was the War Remnants Museum that showcased the brutal history of the Vietnam War. It turned out to be a 5 minute walk from the Palace and we immediately bought entry tickets to the museum. The visit to the museum was sobering and grim to say the least. It was divided into 8 sections with different sections potraying different aspects of the war. There were life-size replicas of the US tanks and aircrafts used in the war, as well as missiles and bombs. Most of the sections depcited the entire conflict using photographs and posters. It was an eye-opener to read through the depictions and understand what the people of Vietnam went through during the war. There was a section that contained the replicas of the prison cells and execution room (with the guillotine) that were in place during the war. I noticed an overwhelming number of American people at the museum - perhaps trying to get a sense of this war, which is especially relevant in today's context. We left the museum an hour later with a sense of sadness and sombre. War is never good...never

By the time we left the museum, it was about five in the evening. We followed the map to go to this place that featured the famous Water Puppet show of Saigon. After a little bit of confusion, we finally found the building and went inside to buy the tickets. There were 2 shows everyday - one at 6:30pm and the other at 8pm. Our original plan was to watch the show that evening itself, but we were feeling very tired by this time and we knew that we would not enjoy the show with a tired body and mind. So we decided to buy the 8pm tickets for the following day's show. Having done that, we decided to get back to our hotel and go for a swim in the lovely swimming pool there for relaxation. And it was on the way back we discovered that actually all this while we were not too far away from our hotel.This meant that we had taken a long circle to come all the way from the hotel to the Palace and Museum area, when in fact we could have taken a much shorter route by cutting across the Tao Dan Park - the very park that we were standing outside of after just 2 minutes walk from the Water Puppet show building. There was nothing much we could do but shrug and laugh. The park was really pretty and we spent a good half an hour inside the park. We even rested on one of the park benches for a while before continuing our journey towards the hotel. The park shortcut took just about 10 minutes to get back to the hotel and we made a mental note to take that route when we go for the Water Puppet show the following day.

Back at the hotel, we wasted no time to hit the pool since it was already 6pm. On the way to the pool, I inquired about the full-body massage that the hotel health centre was offering for 17 USD. I thought it was a good deal and booked a 6:30pm timeslot - just nice after a relaxing half hour fun at the pool. It was an outdoor pool at the 2nd level and it looked gorgeous. There were only 2 other people beside us in the swimming pool. Nirva and I both did quite a few laps along the width of the not so deep end of the pool (about 1.6 m). It felt truly divine to be inside the water after such an excruciatingly tiring day. After about 30 minutes, I left for the massage while Nirva relaxed on the chairs by the side of the pool. The massage lasted an hour and it was really good. The masseuse was really professional and knew her craft. An hour later I got back to our hotel room with Nirva already ready to go for dinner.

We left our room 15 minutes after I came back and proceeded to go to our favorite restaurant once again. I think we both liked the food there so much that we didn't really want to try anything else. Besides that was one of the very few places that had a good vegetarian menu to boast about. Since we were feeling relaxed and rejuvenated, and were hungry after the swim, we had a good spread at dinner. Once again, the staff at the restaurant were very nice and it was a pleasure to spend our evening there. Having finished that, we decided to head to a supermarket that Nirva had gone to earlier - Zen Plaza. We had to exchange some currency and I wanted to go to the local supermarket to buy some savories back for my office colleagues. Also, I wanted to see what was the cost of very basic food items in Saigon - just to get a feel of how much did the basic necessities cost in the country. Zen Plaza was another 15 minute walk from the restaurant. We reached there at about 9:40pm, just 20 minutes before the place closed down. We quickly exchanged some Singapore dollars to Vietnamese Dong and went inside the supermarket at the basement. I bought some mixed fruit chips and sesame biscuits for my colleagues. Nirva and I also bought an ice cream which we had sitting on the steps of Zen Plaza. We took a nice slow walk back to the hotel and soon retired to our beds since the following day we needed to wake up very early to make it for the Mekong trip. All in all, it was a satisfactory day - yes we were tired of walking around in the heat, but the swimming pool at the hotel really helped. And as always, we capped it off with a nice dinner.

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Trip - Day 1 (4th April 08)

Nirva and I decided go on a 3 day trip to Ho Chi Minh city, aka Saigon in Vietnam. The whole thing came about because Nirva had a business trip planned to Saigon and we thought that it would be best to extend the stay and make it into a holiday as well. So Nirva flew on business to HCM city on 1st April and I joined her on the evening of the 4th. My plane landed at the Tan Son Nhut airport at about 5pm and by the time I cleared immigration and collected my baggage, it was around 5:30pm. I got a prepaid taxi from the airport to drop me at our hotel (New World Hotel) which costed me 12 USD.

During this taxi ride, I got my first taste of Saigon. I was absolutely amazed at the traffic - it was chaotic and crowded. And the number of 2 wheelers just blew away my mind. All I could see on the road were people on scooters or motorcycles at every inch (even on the pavement). And I was surprised by the number of women riders - I was positive that I saw more women riding the 2 wheelers than men. And the traffic was a crawl at certain places - on one of the long stretch of roads towards the hotel, my taxi would barely move for 15 second before coming to a halt for 4 minutes. This pattern repeated for at least 10-15 times on that road and I was wondering if I would reach my hotel by that night. Finally, at about 7pm I arrived at the New World Hotel, with Nirva waiting for me at the entrance with a worried look.

The hotel looked good and so did the room. We chatted for a while before we decided to head out for dinner. Nirva had found this nice restaurant about 5 minutes from the hotel that served amazing vegetarian dishes at crazily cheap prices. After a quick freshening up, we walked to the restaurant while trying to cross roads amongst heavy and chaotic traffic. The vehicles would just come at us from any direction. I was kind of transported back into India where I was used to such traffic patterns. But despite the chaotic and undirectional traffic, the people seemed nice - no one seemed to unnecessarily raise tempers at the pedestrians or fellow riders for cutting lanes and crossing roads. So after an adventurous 5 minute walk, we were at the restaurant - Bi & Bee Saigon.

And boy did it live up to Nirva's word. The food was really excellent - and it was really cheap. We ordered vegetable tempura for starters, crispy fried noodle with vegetables and a mixed vegetable braised claypot for main course. And we ordered a couple of cocunuts to have the coconut water. The portions were huge! And it was such a gastronomic affair - the braised claypot dish was especially tasty with its own spices. The chilli sauce that they had was yummy as well - we immediately decided that we will buy a bottle of that chilli sauce from the local supermarket to take back home. And all of this came to only 8 USD. I couldn't believe that we hogged such tasty food for just 8 USD. Needless to say we left as very satisfied customers and decided to come back for more meals while we were in HCM city.

After dinner, we decided to go to the famous night market - about 15 minutes walk on the other side of the hotel. The market had an interesting array of roadside shops selling all kinds of paraphernalia imaginable - there were pirated Prada, Gucci and other branded bags, clothes, soft toys, wooden show pieces, purses, decorative items, shoes and what not. We went to several differnet shops and Nirva bought a nice handbag for 10 USD. We made a mental note to buy in the following days many of the things we saw as gifts for our friends and relatives. We wanted to check out the day market as well before making our purchases because it was supposed to offer a better array of choices. Having spent about an hour at the market, we walked back to the hotel. I was tired of the flight and walking, so we decided to call it a night and start the real tour of Saigon from the next day onwards.

A weekend of calls and conversations

This has been a rather mixed bag of a weekend for me. First, Nirva left for India for her sister's wedding on Saturday evening which made me sad because I won't be seeing her until the 24th. And one of my other housemates Neha left as well (coincidentally for her brother's wedding), leaving just 2 people in the house - effectively just me because my other housemate is rarely around. And I am still not used to living alone in this house, although last night I did sleep with my room lights off (you will be proud to know my dear). And today (Sunday) I had to spend hours trying to understand the requirements of the new project for which I have been made the defacto Project Manager. For some reason, I am finding it very difficult to understand the domain as well as accept this whole business of PM work. I so wish I didn't have to do this, but it seems that everyone around me except for me thinks this is a good career move for me. I have to submit pricing, proposal and project plan by Wednesday and I have not had a start at any of the 3 areas yet - the whole day was spent in reading the old documents and trying to understand what is the project about since the users expect me to know all the details beforehand. I don't know how I will fare in this but I don't have a good feeling about this.

Anyway, apart from the dreary things above, the good and surprising thing that happened this weekend were phone calls - this truly was a weekend of calls. On Saturday evening, first I spoke to Kartik (my cousin) and Krithika (my bhabhi) in Mumbai for an hour and fifteen minutes. After that I called home and spoke with my parents for about 25 minutes. This was followed by a 40 minute conversation with Shankar mama (my uncle). And before the night was over, I spoke with Ramesh in the U.S. (Kartik's younger brother) for a good 25 minutes. To top it all, this morning, my mother called me and I got to speak with two of my cousin sisters Shubha and Janani. So all in all, this has been a weekend of calls and conversations - of catching up with family, something which I had meant to do for a long time. Of late many of my relatives were getting a bit angry with me for not calling them, since I used to be very punctual and diligent at that earlier. I hope I have addressed everyone's qualms adequately this time-:)

Back after a long time, will be gone for long again

So I am back to blogging after a long while. And it looks like I will be gone for long again given the new challenges that are going to manifest soon at my work. A lot has happened since the last time I posted here. I made a trip with Nirva to Ho Chi Minh city (I will make posts devoted solely to that trip later). I accepted a new role at my job and it is already feeling way too challenging. But in this post, I am just going to talk about something I had intended to do about 2-3 weeks back - having finished watching seasons 1 to 3 of House.

Yes, I have finally finished watching the 3 seasons of House. And I must say I was really really hooked. I think House is a very interesting character - different from what the TV shows throw up normally. I do admire him in some ways, although I do find him obnoxious in many other ways as well. Thanks to the series though that I learned so many new medically-related terms - I learned of diseases I had never heard before like Auto-immune disorder, African sleeping sickness, tuberous sclerosis, lupus, Cushing's disease; I learned of medical procedures that were completely unknown to me like entebation; I learned of new viruses and amoebas like Epstein-Barr virus and Naeglaria Fowleri (skin eating amoeba) and I heard of new medicines like IVIG, broad spectrum antibiotics and interferon. I think overall the series balances real medicine with drama quite brilliantly. One of my favorite episodes is the 2-part story of the laughing cop (titled "Euphoria") where Foreman also gets infected with the same disease and somehow the team finds at the neck of time that it was Naeglaria Fowleri. The tension was really cutting-edge throughout the 2 episodes, and you get to see one of the very few times that House does care. I thoroughly enjoyed almost all the episodes of Season 1 and 2, although the quality of the series did go down a bit during Season 3.

A severely compromised Immune System?

That is, my immune system. My friends and family have known this for a while now - the frequency with which I seem to fall ill - all the common illnesses strike me quite commonly, so to speak - be it cold or fever or influenza. In fact, currently I am in the middle of recovering from a debilitating influenza attack. I got hit by the virus some time last Tuesday when I visited a cardiologist in the Gleneagles hospital here (that's another story altogether, but so far nothing seems to be wrong with my heart, so no worries there). Since then, I have been on medical leave for 7 continuous days and I still have not recovered. Days 3 to 5 were especially bad when I was sneezing uncontrollably and feeling weak and dizzy all the time. Today was the first time in a week that I went to work. The phlegm is still there in my system and my nose is still blocked. At the end of the day, I started sneezing once again just as I was leaving work. And in between all this, I have been unable to sleep well in the night for some odd reason (despite the supposedly "knock-out" medicines).

So what's wrong with me? I know it has to be my immune system. I maybe termed obese in the strictest numerical sense, but I do not think that that is the cause of all this - I do not experience the symptoms of obesity and I quite love to (and without any difficulty as well) run and indulge in physical activities. So what happened to my immune system? And when? I do not recall being susceptible to these common illnesses during my 4 years in the US. And before that I do not recall falling sick at all when I did my Junior College in Singapore. It's only after coming back in 2004 that my immune system has tanked. I do agree that unhappiness at work is a contributing factor. But that much? I am not that unhappy at work (at least not yet) that it would impact my immune system so severely (although I attribute my hypertension problem solely to the torturous and agonizing first few months at work). So what happened? Do you have a clue? And more importantly, do you know someone (a doctor or wise old men/women or a body of knowledge) who can suggest ways on how to rebuild my immunity (preferably without ingesting big pharma tablets into my body)? I would be really grateful if someone could point me to such a source. Because I think the time has come for me to really address this issue...I will be 30 in a couple of years and I want to be in good health before I hit that number.

Yes, I am a bit scared, somewhat in despair and quite lost as to what to do.

A quiet dinner made interesting

After work on a day of heavy torrential downpour, I decided to head to the nearby Siglap area to have a quiet (and brooding) dinner by myself. My first choice was to eat cheap - at Rajah's prata shop. To my disappointment, it was closed and I decided to move on to my second option - Pizza Hut - only if they had the summer vegetable soup. I knew tonight was not going to be my night when they told me that they no longer have that soup on their menu. So, I decided to exercise the safest option available - eat at Chutney Mary (a small restaurant serving Indian snacks and main courses). Having ordered a biryani and a rogan josh, I sipped my masala tea, looking forward to the dinner in solace.

Before the food I ordered arrived, an old couple (maybe in their 60s) sat on the table next to mine. And then started a somewhat interesting, somewhat irritating but devoid of solitude dinner. They were a stereotypical old Indian couple - the lady a nagging complaining wife, the man listening to his wife's nagging but not caring much about it husband. The lady spent many minutes trying to get the waiter to explain what was meant by "Shami Kebab" in every minute detail. Dissatisfied after the poor waiter's best attempts at explaining, she then spent a few minutes lamenting how the waiters neither know how to serve nor know what they are serving, with the husband joining in with a nod of his head. After a few more detailed queries on some other items, the couple finally got down to the business of ordering. There was another mini disapproval session when the waiter actually understood and repeated one of their somewhat complicated order correctly, but the lady decide to ignore that and re-emphasize the whole thing again, making sure the waiter felt that he had got it wrong after all.

Now that the waiter had gone (and I bet none of them wanted to hover around their table, and by a sad spacial extension mine as well), the lady started making comments about the dishes being brought to a party of 3 at another table (my food had not arrived by then, ergo I was spared). Somehow the mini-basket in which they serve the bread caught her attention so much that she called the waiter to ask "what is that thing on that table" in a voice loud enough for the diners at that table to hear. After a few minutes of explanation from the poor waiter with the "oh-kill-me" face, she finally understood that that is how the restaurant serves bread. She loudly remarked that she wanted the basket too, although I suspect that they hadn't ordered bread in the first place. By this time my food arrived, and I think she remarked something about the dish in which my biryani was served, although I did not catch the exact remark. This was followed by some more lamentations about how Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta & co were just shaking their hips and not actually dancing in the song "Maahi Ve" that was being shown on the television screen in the restaurant. Throughout all this, I was so tempted to do a House and say something very House-like to them but I guess real life is not a televised drama and one should refrain from bringing House-like characters out in such situations.

So that was my dinner...which I had hoped would be peaceful but it never was. At the end of it, I was thinking "I hope Nirva and I do not end up like that when we grow old" (Don't worry jaan, I know you can never been that nagging lady-:)). That was definitely not what I wanted my old age to be. And that led me thinking to the frequent discussions I have had with my friend and colleague Edwin about whether we will repeat the same mistakes as our parents as we grow old and as we bring up our kids. Both of us have seen that our dads have not been the dads they should have been through our childhood and teenage years. Having gone through that experience and being cognizant of those flaws should enable us to consciously avoid repeating those same mistakes when we grow old and raise our children. But Edwin will always say that that might not be the case - there is a good chance that we will also end up repeating those things, despite knowing the contrary. I don't believe so, but sometimes I do wonder, will we? Will I be a good husband and a good dad as I grow old? Will I learn from watching my dad when I was growing up and not repeat those mistakes?

I guess only time will tell.

Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone

No, I am not writing a tribute to Bill Withers or bringing up a reference to Notting Hill here. This is exactly how I feel and how it is since Nirva left for India last night for her sister's engagement. It has been raining since last night. It's been gloomy and dark all day today. So this is for you my dear:

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone.
It's not warm when she's away.
Ain't no sunshine when she's gone
And she's always gone too long anytime she goes away.

It is true...she's really always gone too long anytime she goes away. Eagerly awaiting her return Friday of next week.

CNY 2008 - Pulau Ubin Trip

The Chinese New Year holidays this year offered a rare long holiday as it fell on Thursday and Friday (7th, 8th Feb). And it so happened that both Nirva and I had no plans to go anywhere, and most of our friends were out of town on holiday. So the two of us decided to go to this small island near the mainland of Singapore known as Pulau Ubin (shown circled in the map). Both of us had been wanting to go there for a while and this was occasion parfait.

So we set out at 9 am on the morning of 7th Feb, taking with us bottles of water and food in our backpacks since we planned to come back only around 4 pm. Pulau Ubin is a cycling/walking haven and we planned to cycle around the islands, so we had to be well stocked up with water. The weather outlook for the day was sunny with lots of wind. Our first destination was the Changi Point Ferry Terminal from where we can take a $2.00 per person 10-minute bumboat ride to Pulau Ubin. Luckily Bus No. 2 went all the way from the bus station near our house to the ferry terminal thereby simplifying matters.

The bus ride itself was a revelation to us because we went through parts of Singapore that both of us had never been to. It took us about 45 minutes to reach the Changi Point bus terminal. We decided to have breakfast at the hawker centre there before catching the bumboat. Since it was CNY, very few stalls were open and we had to queue up at a roti-prata stall for 15 minutes to get food. Having washed down 2 egg pratas with a glass of Teh-Ci, we proceeded to the Ferry Terminal nearby to line up for the bumboat.

Again, owing to CNY, there were many people going to the islands nearby. But we got lucky once again...the bumboat can accommodate a maximum of 12 people and it so happened that the bumboat that was leaving was short of 2 passengers. When the boat captain asked for 2 more people to join, we put our hands up quickly since rest of the people were in their own large groups and wanted to travel together.The bumboat ride was quite something, for me at least. The waves were high since it was around 11:00am and the boat really rocked. The 10 minute ride seemed like 1/2 an hour to me. But it was very scenic as well.I secretly wished that on the way back it would be low tide and a relatively smoother ride-:)

And so we set foot on the island of Pulau Ubin. After a quick photo-op, we proceeded to the rather small visitor center to grab a map of the island. The island looked quite conquerable to us and we decide to head towards the bicycle rental shops ahead of us to grab our bicycles for the day. We were stopped in our tracks by the owner of the first bicycle rental itself...he advertised his bike prices as the lowest we could find on that island (not that we had 100s of choices), and gave me some mercedes-honda analogy when I asked for specific bikes. We tried out a couple of "hondas" which were going at $12 for the whole day. Nirva was not too happy initially, more so with the haggling of the rental owner than with the bike itself. But soon we found bikes to our liking and paid the 24 dollars.I am not sure if this really was the cheapest available, but we did not want to delay our bike hike any more. We were all excited and revved up to discover the island.

The owner had suggested to us the route to take and the recommended spots. We had read online that Chek Jawa wetlands (eastern tip of the island) were a must-see and so we decided to head towards that direction. The entire bike trail was composed of roads as well as dirt paths, and was hilly. With the sun hunkering down on us and the humidity in the air, it soon became quite hard to cycle up and down the hilly roads. We finally reached the point where we had to drop off our bikes and continue on foot to the Chek Jawa wetlands.

After anchoring our bikes to the bicycle stands, we started on our walk and within 2 minutes arrived at the Chek Jawa visitor centre. A sign on the board there informed us that the day's lowest tide would be at 6:28pm. Chek Jawa wetlands are the best to see when the tide is low because it is then when one can see all the marine flora and fauna in its full glory. We decided that since we had already reached the area, we would go ahead with touring the wetlands, but we made a mental note to come back to the area around 4pm or so to get a better view when the tide is falling. Looking for a WC before embarking on our walk, we saw a house-like structure overlooking the ocean. The scenes from there and from the jetty behind it were breathtaking. We really had a fun time there admiring the beauty of the place, although the sun was really baking us by then since it was noon already.

There were two different boardwalks around the Chek Jawa wetlands - Coastal and Mangrove. We decided to walk both since they were just over a kilometer. Once again, the scenery was absolutely fantastic. The mangrove trees all around the wetlands were beautiful to look at and admire. The coastal boardwalk led into the mangrove one and we saw some cool natural growth - we saw a tree which was 40% submerged in water and it looked something out of the ordinary. And we also spotted this flowing sheet of green algae near the beach at one point - it looked as if a green plastic sheet was spread across the area. We also encountered some marine life unique to Chek Jawa wetlands. All in all we had a great time going around the wetlands and decided to have lunch at the visitor centre there, before heading back to grab our bikes.

Mind you, the sun was at its strongest throughout our biking and walking and we had grown increasingly tired. After lunch, we had to spend some time fixing Nirva's bike since the chain had come off the axle. My hands were covered completely with black grease and I had to spend 15 minutes trying to get rid of all that muck. We finally set off again and to our dismay discovered that the path back was really very ragged and rough, making cycling almost impossible. To make matters worse, it was mostly uphill, so we ended up pushing our bikes up the dirt path. It took us a good 20 minutes to cover the dirt road before we could start biking again. We decided to go to a beach nearby but it turned out it was nothing much and we turned back again. We had decided to visit the western part of the island but the heat had made us really exhausted and we decided to call it a day. We biked back to the rental shop to drop of our bikes and then we headed towards the jetty to take the ferry back to mainland Singapore. We may have spent only 4 hours at Pulau Ubin, but we had fun. We knew we were going back with fond memories of the beautiful scenery on the island and vowed to return some day to view the wetlands during low tide.

A leap of Faith, literally

This post is for my dear friend and colleague, Edwin - congratulations to you and Belle on the birth of your daughter - Faith! I am very very happy for you guys.

Running out of options

This afternoon will see two important things happen for me at work - performance appraisal for 2007, and discussion on what role/job I want to do in 2008. For the first, I am not very hopeful since I frankly feel that I did not do much last year at work. Partly because of my own lack of interest, but mostly due to the unstable work environment. On paper I did have a boss for the first 8 months of my role but I hardly ever saw him. I had taken up the challenging role, hoping to learn and gain knowledge from him, but that never happened. And then he left abruptly - while I was out of the country - without bothering to let me know when he very well knew I wouldn't be here on the day of his departure. I feel it smacks of irresponsibility from all angles.

The bigger and more difficult issue at hand is what role do I want to take up in 2008? This has been a constant source of tension for me for the past few months. Frankly, there is nothing in this organization that appeals to me - given the kind of people and politics, any role seems to be a waste of time. But I got to do something - not only for bread and butter, but also because I cannot live with the fact that I am getting a salary for doing nothing. I would like to earn what I am being paid for. So far, the only time I have been happy (a very rare thing) at work is when I worked in a development team with a few other people who were motivated and driven. Such people are a rarity here, and if they do happen to be here by mistake, they leave soon, given the amount of unnecessary politics that plagues people. Other than that, it is the same mess everywhere within this department. Or is it true of the company in general? Where do I go now? My heart says that I should just leave this department and try something completely new - new domain, new role, new colleagues, new seat! But would that necessarily advance my long term career? Or should I not care, since whatever I do in these 6 years is not going to help my future career anyway? Should I just give up the technical field and take up one of those project mgmt positions? Or should I go into sales, which here pretty much means "selling without understanding what the department does, and then let the delivery team bear all the shit". Or should I go join one of those sexy-sounding but flaky cost centers inside the company whose job scope is very fluid? I have so many equal choices out there, yet I feel I am running out of options. And I still have 33.5 months more left to serve! I got to find something that can make me happy - if not monetarily, then by virtue of the role itself. 3 years is a long time to remain unhappy, isn't it?

On a not so lazy Sunday morning

Sundays are usually for sleeping in - to catch up on those hours of lost sleep during the week. Last night, I slept soundly after a long time and was hoping (sub-consciously ofcourse) that I could continue my blissful sleep until late morning. I was having a dream sequence composed of Govinda (a Bollywood actor) and Julia Roberts involved in competing for a race on finding something inside a safe inside some room down some stairs. And Julia Roberts had just beaten Govinda by getting into the room first (Govinda got confused between 3 doors and chose the left most instead of the right most) and opening the safe, when my bladder jolted me out of my dream and send me straight to the bathroom. And that was the end of my Sunday sleep-in - at 7:30 AM. Once I get out of bed for any reason, I can never get back to the business of sleeping.

Having woken up early, I decided to finish off some chores around the house, and then thought I would surprise Nirva by making omelets for breakfast. I decided to catch the last day of the 2nd Test match between India and Australia at Sydney, while having my breakfast. I hope India can draw this test (a win would be just out of the world!!!) so that series still remains alive. And I really hope the racism accusation on Harbhajan Singh gets sorted out fairly - if he is indeed found guilty, then ban him, but if he is not, I think the Australian captain and the team needs to be given a rap for bringing such a serious charge against a player with no evidence.

By the way, if you are wondering why Bollywood and Hollywood actors figured in a race in my dream, I can explain - So happens that that evening I was reading a news report featuring Julia Robert's role in her latest movie (Charlie Wilson's War) and how she could be nominated for a Supporting Actress Oscar. And during dinner, I was watching the music video of songs from the movie Salaam-E-Ishq featuring Govinda. And during the day, while watching TV, I had seen many ads regarding the Amazing Race Asia. I think these 3 things combined together to produce my vivid dream-:)

P.S. As I type, India have lost their 2nd wicket. I really hope we can last out the remaining 60 overs and not lose this test.

ESS = Lip Service?

Today, I saw an email in my Inbox asking us to fill out the customary annual Employee Satisfaction Survey (or ESS). Year after year I have filled it out diligently - not only providing responses to the multiple choice questions, but also to the additional comments column that most people leave empty. But I sometimes wonder if all this ESS business is mere lip service? In the 3 years I have filled this out, my constant theme has been that managers in this company are not people managers. Yes, they can do profit & loss management (only some of them do it well to be true) and relook at processes (again some of them don't even have a clue about this) - but is that all that a manager is required to do? I believe that in the SI (Systems Integrator) line of work, people are your greatest (and perhaps only) assets, because people design the systems that the company eventually sells to make profit. So shouldn't a major part of company's resources be devoted to people's well being? Good employee benefits and DnDs are all fine, but the most important aspect of this are the managers. This group must have people management skills as a key competency - they must be able to talk to employees, motivate them, help them build their careers and give them that sense of satisfaction and pride at work. There is no use lamenting why the turnover is so high. And there is no use offering people more money the moment they throw in the letter. I don't think all people are solely after money. If the company cannot offer a good career path to its employees and if the managers are not competent in people management, i don't see why an employee will stay beyond 1-2 years. And I have repeated this point in all the 3 ESS. The question is whether this ESS is taken seriously or is it just another statistic, another chore that the HR has to do in order to meet its objectives - on paper?

A Healthy beginning to 2008!

Ever since I read in the news that the Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network (PCN) has been completed, I have been wanting to go on a bike trail along this network. For those who do not know what is PCN, check this site. It basically connects the different parks on the eastern side of Singapore. This is what the network looks like:

Nirva and I wanted to do this last weekend, but to our dismay we found out that her bike was flat and we could not pump in the air at the gas station (the bike shops were all closed since it was a sunday). So I thought, what better way to start the New Year than going on this bike trip on the 1st of Jan! I got her bike fixed on the 31st so that the only thing that could keep us from doing this is our own lethargy-:) Although we got up late, we decided to go for it anyway - the weather was the deciding factor - it was cloudy and windy and the temperatures were low for 2:30 in the afternoon.

So we set out, in full josh, from our home with a bottle of water and a camera (without which this blog post would be quite boring). After crossing the train station (Kembangan) next to our home, we headed into the Siglap Park Connector. From there on we biked for about 4.5km before hauling our bikes up an overhead bridge, which took us right into the East Coast Park (ECP).

We rode along the scenic East Coast Park until we reached the cable skiing area, at which time we decided to take a much needed break (as seen in the picture on left). After resting for a bit, we decided that to do the entire 42km stretch would be a bit too much for the day - so we decided to do the shorter (18km) route that goes through bedok park connector instead of the coastal park connector. This entailed taking the bikes via an underground tunnel to reach the Bedok Park connector. I hauled both Nirva's bike and mine and finally we were on our way on the Bedok Park Connector.

Little did we know that the Bedok Park connector would run for such a long distance. And we were also pleasantly surprised when we saw the Bedok Road Food Court en route. We really could not resist taking a break and having the famous Cheng Tng from this food centre (as shown on the right). Nirva and I enjoyed the cold and hot varieties respectively of the Cheng Tng

Fully rejuvenated, we decided to carry-on uninterrupted for a while since we had taken too many breaks in succession. The next leg of our biking adventure along the loooooong Bedok Park Connector brought us to the canal that runs across the Bedok Reservoir. It really seemed very scenic indeed and the weather added to the charm. Right before reaching the Bedok Reservoir, we had to dismount to push our bikes across another overhead bridge (across a ramp). It would be so much better if these bike paths could allow for uninterrupted cycling - going through these overhead bridges and underpasses really breaks the flow. Anyway, there we were, right at Bedok Reservoir and we decided to move on, since it was already 3 hours since we had started on our bike hike. We crossed into the Bedok Town Park after some confusion with the directions.

This turned out to be the hardest part of the journey. The bike path through Bedok Town Park was a series of slopes and it really took the life out of us. We decided to dismount and just push our bikes through the upslopes until we reached level ground again. All of a sudden, the bike path ended and before us loomed an overhead bridge with no ramps! We realized that we would have to really push our bikes up along the stairs of the overhead bridge and that seemed daunting, given our energy levels. But, we had no choice and so we braced ourselves and conquered the bridge-:). But the reward for crossing the bridge was very heartfelt - we realized that we had come to the area where we normally jog until - that meant that home was not far away - YAY! This gave us energy enough to pedal our way onto another overhead bridge (this time with ramps) that leads right into our HDB estate. We were finally home! We had covered about 18km in 3.5 hours - albeit with numerous breaks in between - but we had done it! Mission accomplished - now give it to the shutterbugs please-:)

Happy New Year!

Hi all - a very happy new year to you and your family! I just looked at the last (and the first) post I made on this blog and I am ashamed - it has been almost 4 and half months of laziness on my part. I really hope I can blog more regularly in 2008. I feel it is a good way to collect my thoughts and review things happening in my life.

So how did you spend the night of 31st Dec 2007? My housemates and I invited some friends over and we played board/card games like UNO and Risk. We ordered Pizza for dinner from Sarpinos Pizzeria (I know this might sound strange to those in the US but having good pizza in Singapore is a rarity) and counted down 10 seconds before midnight. This was followed up by some dancing, of which i was a reluctant participant - but i did enjoy some of the salsa moves. It felt good putting the 4 weeks of salsa lessons to use. I think salsa is a lot fun when the girl really lets the guy lead with no pre-conceived moves in mind.

The next day (1st Jan 2008) was a holiday and Nirva and I decided to start the New Year on a healthy note. We decided to go on this 42 km bike trail - the parks on the eastern side of Singapore are now connected to each other and the whole trail is 42 km in length. We started at about 2:30 in the afternoon - the weather was really nice - cloudy and windy. In the end we did only 18km, but it was so much fun. I will post in greater detail about the bike trail later (with photos).

Another good thing I did yesterday was to call all my mamas (uncles on my mother's side) and talk to them. During the last year, I did not call any one regularly besides Shankar mama, mostly out of laziness, and also because Shankar mama and I can really talk about a variety of things ranging from politics to books to movies to cricket etc. Now when i was in India, I was really very close to all my 4 mamas - so at some point of time last year, my other mamas started feeling a bit left out and thought that I was not very keen on talking to them - when that was definitely not the case. So I forced myself to sit near the telephone and call each one of them one by one and talk to them for at least 15 min each. I also spoke with my cousin and her wife and heard the first words from my niece's mouth - it was just wonderful! At the end of it, I was a bit exhausted after being on the phone for about 2 hours - but it felt very good. It felt that I had started off 2008 on just the right notes - be it personal health or relationships. These are 2 of the 3 things I want to work on in 2008.

The 3rd and the hardest thing for me is to address my work - it has been 4 months since I have really lost any interest whatsoever in my job. The workplace itself seems to be going from bad to worse - come to think of it, it has been unstable since I joined in 2004, with no signs of getting settled ever. I would so want to just get out of this place and do something on my own - but I have 3 more years of my bond to serve. I really must force myself to think clearly and talk to my managers about getting into a meaningful job position here - after all I can't sit here unhappy and under-utilized for 3 years! I just need to do this for myself - for my own good. I do wish I can break all self-imposed barriers and get on this task asap - that would really make the start of this New Year absolutely rocking!