Best birthday surprises -Part 4

My Belgian birthday: The latest of my birhtdays was spent in a strange country, with people I had known only about a week. It was all very different, alright, but I missed the possibility of the usual surprises that we used to have in the good ol days :) But then, I thought to myself 'aint I getting a bit too old for that'.

So that was that, a regular day at work - or so I thought. It turned out to be a really joyful day! For starters, my colleagues in the Belgium office knew it was my birthday, I had not expected them to. When I came to office, my PC was already on and had 'Happy Birthday' on it, I thought that was so sweet of the colleague who did it.

Then, Linda gifted me a home baked cake with lots and lots of hazelnuts(from her parents' garden!) in it. It was so yummy. now i know why those squirrels in the cartoons are so crazy about hazelnuts! Later, I went around the city buying a lot of hazelnut chocolates! Anyway, I didnt miss my mom's cake :) Her son who was studying to be a chef had made it. I thought that was so terribly sweet of them!

Since I had been in Belgium for the past 10 days, I had been having totally bland food everyday and that killed the life out of the joy of eating. anyway, I had tried many of their dishes and actually liked them, so no regrets. Today, my kind colleagues decided to feed me spicy food and took me to a Thai restaurant! And the food was REALLY spicy and toooo good! It was another colleague's wedding anniversary so we celebrated jointly.

Lunch done, we got back to the office after a quick stroll. To our curiosity, there was a huge cardboard box standing at the door and it was carried upstairs to the office and stripped. Imagine my surprise when it contained colourful flowers addressed to me! My friend was nice enough not just to remember my birthday, but also to send some customised flowers abroad. now, thats a surprise!

Continued...

Best birthday surprises- Part 3

Ashwin's birthday: He was my boss, a real good one in fact! We were a small office and each one's birthday was celebrated specially. Mostly we surprised the birthday person, atleast we tried to ;)

Ashwin was a model boss. He was always the first to get to office everyday, at 7.30 or 8 in the morning, worked real hard, treated all his employees importantly, AND encouraged us to plan everyone's birthday surprises. So, it was going to be difficult to surprise him, but we badly wanted to..

For days we toyed with different ideas and plans and finally came up with a fool proof one ;)
The night before his birhtday, Shobz and I went birthday shopping and bought his gifts, a cricket book by Steve Waugh and a smiley stress buster rubber ball - He was crazy about cricket and had wanted to get the book himself. We got chocolate cake, glitters, balloons and other decorative strings and papers. We came back to office and did up his room till i think 9 or 10 in the night.

The next morning, at 7, all of us huddled inside his small room in the office. The plan was to stay locked in his room silently and surprise him by singing happy birthday and bursting the balloons, just as he opened the door to come in. Everything was perfectly arranged. We heard his car and waited breathlessly. He was on the phone when he came up the stairs and opened his door. All of us screamed "Happy Birthday", balloon bursting, glitter flinging et all! He dropped his bag, almost dropped his O2 phone on the hard floor.

I saw more shock than surprise on his face! :D but then, we did manage to genuinely "surprise" him :) ha ha

Continued...

Best birthday surprises - Part 2

One of my own bdays- It was my first year in college and I was not fitting too well -either into the course or into the crowd. But life was going on, in its own pace.

In the college facility, the staffs' room was among the PG (Post graduate) area and I had to go there to submit an assignment. As I was getting back, a senior girl who travels with me in the college bus took me by my hand and started talking animatedly.

I was wondering what was wrong with her, she never even used to smile at us kids (UG first years). She deliberately pulled me into a class room where there were few more seniors, taking a break. Then I got the hint..

I started getting very nervous. I had thought ragging was practically non-existent in the college, as the previous year there had been a death related to college violence and punishment for ragging was very severe. I was already preparing in my mind what I would complaint to the college Principal when the girl suddenly presented me in front of a guy and left in a whiff.

I was paranoid standing before him. This senior guy looked completely laid back and cool and he waved off the other guys who tried to join him in the fun. "So!"he bellowed, making himself comfortable on the bench "can the baby sing?". I shook my head furiously. "Liar! I heard you sing on the bus day!" Silence "Ok, then dance for me". What nerve! I thought to myself.

The break was over and the classroom started getting empty, much to my horror. In a few seconds, there were just the two of us in the room. I was close to tears. I told him I wanted to leave and started to, but he stopped me. "You are not going anywhere" he said firmly.

I finally sang a song in a shaky voice and then he smiled and said I can go. I was so relieved! I almost ran out, he stopped me again. He brought out a huge chocolate bar, Cadbury's Fruit & Nut and extended it to me saying "Happy Birthday"! I was completely surprised and I broke into a wide smile and thanked him and off I went with my thrilling birthday wish!

We bumped into each other many times later that year and he turned out to be the one to show me the ropes in the college. We did keep in touch even after he left the college, but slowly lost contact. I hope to bump into him again in the future, but whenever I remember the first encounter, my heart pumps faster! :)
Continued...

Best birthday surprises - Part 1

For the record, I am gonna put down the best birthday surprises (my friends' and mine), not because I am gonna forget them, but just for a fun read. am not ranking this or anything..

One of the best was Asha's. She was engaged to marry Naren a few weeks ago and it was her birthday that day. Our gang usually tries to meet up to give the bums (pun) on all of our birthdays. That particular day was a weekday and it was crazily hectic for me. I could not spare a minute and was certainly gonna work late. but i so wanted to surprise her. I knew she would expect me to meet her. and she was not even allowed to meet her fiance' before marriage-the usual story..

So, after a bit of positive conspiracy, we traced Naren's phone number through his colleagues - none from the gang knew him personally, all we knew was he was working in Infy. I phoned him up, introduced myself, and asked him if he wanted to meet her, but of course they were not permitted to see each other. I told him that I would call asha and tell her that I wanted to meet her and that he can go in my place and surprise her. Another gang member got Naren even a flower bouquet!

So, I called her and told her that I was going to pass by and wanted to see her to wish her. She fell for it and agreed to come out of office and we fixed timings and all that. Imagine her surprise when her fiance' hopped out of the car, complete with flowers to wish her Happy birthday ;) - that time I was in a high tension meeting and didnt even pick up when she called!

Wanna be friends?

Who says we learn from experience? Sometimes, we just end up doing the same things that hurt us over and over again. Then of course, we do it only because we like it. How ironic is that!

In the past few weeks, 6 of my best friends have moved away from town, for different reasons. Actually, no.6 and no.7 are just packing their bags and waiting. The other 5 have already left, each one has his/her own reason.

It was in these few weeks that I realised how dependant my life had been on my friends. I dont mean to say they are my basic needs, but they somehow complete my day. They are an integral part of social life, also giving emotional back up. Being in a different city definitely does not mean that they are not friends anymore, but geography matters. You see what i mean, right? If this girl is sitting in arizona, which is about half the globe away, can i ever catch up with her for coffee at the end of the day?

Just 6 people leaving at the same time has left me thinking in perspectives I had never thought before, such as this- Everytime we make a friend, when we get close to someone, are we just getting ready for another separation and pain. Yes, this sounds a bit far stretched, and yes, this thought will never make me stop making friends. Humans as they say are really social animals. We just cannot live without one another! :)

So people, here I come. I have 6 friends' worth time on my hands after all ;)

Whats good when its fat? ; )

Other than the pay check, of course...
The newspaper for one thing :)

This year, as always, we had lots of Independence day specials- special discounts at shops, special programs on TV, special promotional events by brands. The Hindu (newspaper), for its turn, brought out a real fat edition on 15th August, Wednesday. The newspaper was about 90 pages of printed matter. Of course there were lots of print ads, but still there was so much to read! Just the mere sight of a fat newspaper increases the joy level you know.

Not many of us read the whole of the paper, no matter how much time we have on our hands. But its a fact that we do like to see a fat newspaper everyday. Atleast, thats how i feel. I have always felt that information/knowledge is the most difficult thing to get. And the fact that so many journalists and editors put in their whole days' work in to it, only increases my respect for the mighty bundle of black and white! All this comes to you for just 4 or 5 bucks! I think its amazing..

Yeah..but that does not mean that i read the newspaper everyday just because i respect it so much. Appreciation is one thing, it is better than 4 bucks, it doesnt cost me anything ;) My sis knows better, she had had to try all tricks when i was younger to make me read the papers everyday. But fat newspapers are a totally different subject, no one has to motivate me to read them, the reason why they interest me, still intrigues me!

I woz. Literally!

I am reading the biography of this great guy who founded the the first ever practical personal computer, The CEO and founder of Apple computers, Stephen Wozniak. The book is titled ‘I Woz’. When I first saw it, I thought it must be some sci fi book like ’I robot’ ;)

It turned out to be a semi-auto biography, it is written by Gina Smith and Stephen Woz himself. It started on a good note and kept me on for the first few chapters. It is always nice to know about the lives of great people. But, I am just not able to bring myself to read beyond the first few chapters.

For one thing, the language is so American, which makes it very difficult to keep the interest. And whoever did the actual writing (Gina Smith, i guess) seems to have taped what Woz spoke and just typed it out to make the book without much helpful editing.

I feel that any language has to be projected carefully when it is written. When you are talking, you have the advantage of an additional medium. It is easy to make people understand things the way you want them to, but it is not always possible while its in script. That does not mean you have to use diplomatic words and phrases. It is still possible to capture all the action in writing. Good writers do it all the time.

Just out of curiosity, i googled this book's reviews and found I was not the only one complaining. Of course there were other ppl who liked the book also. But if you are the kind of person who appreciates a bit of good language along with the subject, I recommend staying away from this book, if you do want to read it, be my guest and get frustrated!

While the actual crux of the content is so exciting, the amateur language puts you off so much that you don’t want to read any further. What a waste of a good book!