A milestone...

....one whole year at Flipkart, one year of being all 'grown up', one year of living by myself, away from everything and everyone I collectively call 'home'.

One year since I stepped into the blue/yellow office, cold as a coffin just the way I like it (:P), with semi-quaky knees, completely unsure of what was expected of me and blank as to what I wanted from them - literally straight out of cosseted life in college and as green as can possibly be.

Against my nature, somehow, I chose to be quiet rather than faff around like I do, I chose to observe rather than act for the first time in my life. Which is why I don't know how to react when people think that I'm a quiet person. I learnt, wrote, wrote some more and had fun, a lot of it and continue to do so.

A long list of people who have made it awesome despite rainy clouds, you know who you are - thank you. Right from a TL who I look up to (Manju :D), to pretty editors I adore/d (Rosie, Sherry) to friends who make even 20 articles sound like a breeze,
1) Jamie - I will never tire of bubbles jokes, ever :D Thank you for the corporate guidance, for mentoring me for free, for teaching me the importance of confidence - despite everything.
2) Raghul - punching you is the highlight of some days and just because I punch well doesn't mean I'm not a girl. Thank you for trance and entertainment and the plans. Co-conspiring editor-to-be and only other person with the annoying OCD of correcting people while they are in the middle of a sentence :P
3) Anin - miniature, you're just cute. Just. Cute. So many laughs I have because of you, love, so many :D
4) Madhu - suchafunnyouare, especially when you behave like a dumb dodo around a smartphone :P You should be on stage somewhere with all your guard mimicks and parallel bays and batmen and whatnot and I'll be in the front seat cackling my turkey cackle :D
5) Divya, Nuru, Nijay, Bobby Darling... and all the others... For laughing at my jokes, for holding me around the waist and saying hi when I pass by, for being my one true epic fail crush :D (I know you have no idea I exist and ain't I glad of that), for vanilla scented perfumes and so much more. 

The darty coffee, ginger tea, green tea (blegh) in the (in)famous pantry (where a lot more than just coffee happens/ed:D) with the ITPL view - my life in Flipkart is as close to perfect as I could possibly wish for. And of course, Myarathy and Nijjin, my Flipkart accounts are and will always be incomplete without the two of you... every story starts with you both.

And the office I stepped unsurely into, is where I remember laughing the hardest.

I've surprised myself with my own work ethics, the standards I set for myself in corporate jungle, the lines I never tried toeing despite having freedom like never before - I didn't think I was made that way. While it has still been thorns and roses throughout, the Corporate HAS given me a show of faith and Bengaluru HAS enfolded me into its super dirty arms, and somehow, that means a lot to me.

Some say I have changed but I know how naive and foolishly trusting I still am, so I fail to see the change. Others say that living alone has made me a little rough around the edges but the struggle of daily existence gets to all of us, one time or the other, no? More importantly, I'm still as hare-brained, as socially awkward and as bad a conversationalist as ever was.

Sew the rough patches and the happy days with the thread of frustration and laughter, line the corners with tears of both hysterical laughter and utter depression and weave in some colors of satisfaction and monotony, there is the security blanket that has been my life in Flipkart.

Maybe I've grown as a person, maybe I've learned a few lessons the hard way, maybe I did a few things right. Or maybe not. But it has been the perfect end to a year that I will never ever forget in my life for more reasons than I can count... Proud to be a Flipkartian.

And, as always, tomorrow is a new day, a fresh start, yet another page that I'm dying to scribble on.

P.S: Since I started blogging I promised myself that I wouldn't make it a point to write narcisstically, with a lot of 'I's that nobody gives a flying foo-didly-dee about. But allow me this, please?

P.P.S: For those on my FB, sorry for the repeat telecast :P

Silver Linings. I Think.

I can sit here and groan all day long about how my life is crappy and the clouds don't seem to want to lift and that I feel like I'm stuck in a rut and Mondays are khooni and the rest of the week seems to follow its footsteps and every conversation seems to end in an argument and there is worry and unrest and negativity flushing out all the goodness from my system all the time and not even bokehs can make me happy.

Or

I can force myself to smile at that unselfconscious laugh, try and take the right decisions that will give me direction and purpose and treat myself to an occasional masala puri and tweet about the zombiekeeler donuts I got for free and mod my phone to get fancy Nexus wallpapers and transition effects and revel in the free-ness of Cydia repos and take joy in the new found love for Star Trek and Chris Pine and Cumberbatch and Downey Jr.

....you get the point.
All you need is perspective. 

P.S: It gives me vicarious pleasure to blog when I'm supposed to be dishing out articles on stoooopid bats and armbands and ab exercisers aka work. 

Five Things No One Should Be Subjected To

5) Children screaming at the top of their voices at 7 am on a Sunday morning.

Trust me when I say I like kids, I really do. But just because the summer holidays are here and you are too lazy a parent to find something constructive to do (I'm not being judgemental here, I know what it is like to have bored, hyperactive kids at home), does NOT mean that you let them run amok and ruin lives with their we-have-nothing-to-do-so-we-will-scream screaming. NOT on a sacred SUNDAY MORNING.

4) Restaurants that don't believe in clean cutlery.

I'm never going back to that famous cafe called Coffee on Canvas in Koramangala regardless of how much VFM they give me. They gave me a used fork (eegghhh) to have my waffles with. No bigger put off, beyond disgusting.

3) People who can't stop talking about how much money they have/how awesome they are/how they are God's gift to the human race.

I don't want to know because a) I'm broke by the first week of the month b) that is YOUR opinion. And nobody else's.  c) even if you are (which you aren't) I wouldn't want to know about it. Thank you for keeping your obnoxiousness out of my face.

 2) Girls who string guys along.

You know, the ones who go out alone with a different guy every night of the week, say that they are just friends, enjoy all the attention when it comes their way and then make a big deal out of it when the guys ask them out and blame them for 'taking things in the wrong sense' and 'taking advantage of friendship'. Guys are NOT subtle, that's an established fact. So if you are not interested, do not go out on dates with them just because you have nothing better to do. 

1) People who cannot handle their drink.

You want to drink for 'fun'. Go ahead. You want to get sloshed, behave like a moron and make a complete idiot of yourself. That is your choice to make, as well. But do not, I repeat, DO NOT tell me that you can handle it, that you are the most solid drinker in the history of the world, that it is something you do all the time and THEN proceed to puke your face off, get into trouble and expect me to come to your rescue. Not when we have known each other for all of three seconds. 

Not applicable to besties. 

Bonus: People who use darkened car windows to look at and pick their nose before examining the contents.

I was sitting inside a car with the windows up. Traffic signal. Man on TVS 50. Stops right by my window and starts digging into the deep recesses of his nose. Finds whatever he is looking for, retreives it and proceeds to examine it. Thoroughly. In full public view. In broad daylight.

By the time the light turned green, I'd fainted. 

Monday blues?

Mondays are blue for that person who preferred to be spending the entire weekend lazing around doing nothing but watching Suits, marathon-reading Sophie Says, gorging on exquisite paneer tikka, having pseudo-deep conversations about life and worrying about the near-future on the terrace, having an epiphany when news about a schoolmate aka ex-bff having a baby reaches, Instagramming shmexy photos of aforementioned Sophie Says, doing something about all the laundry that seems to have found its way all over the room and feeling a sense of achievement only to know that someone else has a fully automatic IFB (no less) washing machine to do their laundry, making plans to shop for birthday presents and summer shorts and purple shades and then being too lazy to step outta the house, ditching an almost-midnight walk and gobbling up a kinda sad kulfi, happily ignoring the piled up workload that has accummulated over the last work week knowing full well that Monday will be painful, to say the least and then losing sleep over it. That person also wonders on Sunday night where the weekend went despite not having done anything of consequence.   

So, Mondays are blue for that person.
Not me, nossiree.