Oblivion

When you meet new people, and you know nothing about them, you ask them generic questions to get to know them more. You try to find out where they live in the city, where have they worked before, what college are they from and all sorts of things. Just to get a sense of who that person is. Being new in my office here, I am still going through this process, even though it's already been a month. Even now there are people I don't know at all, and I have the very same conversation for the umpteenth time. It actually runs on autopilot now. And whenever I am stumped I just bring up Pepper, and my dog loving extended team just melts away. So, yeah a lot of back and forth conversations with a lot of people. Yesterday, in one such similar interaction, someone asked me a question and I didn't know how to answer it. I had about 5 different ways I could approach the problem in. She simply asked me "Where are you from?" This seems like a pretty basic question. How could ...

I am a person who doesn't care much for routines, but there is one thing that I have stuck to since I was 15ish I think. Never sleep before 12 in the night. In school, it was to study, so fair point. And in college, sleeping at 12 would mean that you miss out on some major fun in the hostel. So over the years, I have become used to sleeping not before let's say 2am on an average. And after college. when I started working, that just stuck with me. Watching movies, chatting with friends, finishing off work or reading a book. Even though I had to get up early to go to the office the next day, I would still stay up late into the night. In fact, at one point, I felt like the sleep police. I wouldn't let anyone sleep before the clock struck 12. I don't know, I was maybe trying to stretch our college lives a little longer. I would always say that it was a sin to sleep before 12 or something like you have 10 good years before you have a kid and you will have to get up earl...

Over the past few days, I have come to a realization: emotions like love and hate are, as a matter of fact, quite exhausting. They occupy your headspace, consume your time, impact your work, and, generally speaking, affect your entire life. They require a significant amount of effort, but, of course, love brings happiness while hate can drive one to madness. It is a burden to carry around. Considering we all already have some baggage to carry, imagine having to carry hate as well. I mean, goodness, the work involved! You have to complain about them daily until everyone in your vicinity knows about them and can recite your story. Then, people get bored, and you need more content, so you have to delve deeper, overanalyze things, and engage in mandatory social media stalking. And let's not forget about those voodoo dolls in the closet that need attention. Uff! It's so much work to hate people! But on a serious note, it does take a toll on you. It's like a parasite feeding off ...

Social media is getting on my nerves. I mean Social Media is really nice to stay in touch with people, get updates on their lives, share your milestones with the world, stalk your crushes, see what that ex of yours is up to, you know completely innocent stuff. But sometimes it just gets to be too much. My frustration level rises with my screen time. Now, I try to keep it to a moderate, not a minimum. But as I said, even the moderate manages to annoy me! So a while ago, I was very immersed in the whole social media phenomenon, whatsapping my friends about my dinner plans, then snapping them on the way telling them my uber ka speed, showing them what I have ordered on insta stories, tweeting about this amazing dish I just had and ooh checking in on facebook to make sure they know I've reached. I hope you guys know this is just an exaggeration. But you get the idea, I mean always being online, always being connected. These apps have made it so easy for us to stay connected all...

कभी आना थोड़ी बाते करेंगे कुछ तुम कहना कुछ हम भी कहेंगे उस घर की वो दीवार  जिसपर यादे लगाया करते थे रोज़ सुबह खटखटा के  दफ्तर को जाया करते थे  कभी आना थोड़ी बाते करेंगे पुरानी बाते याद कर थोड़ा मिलकर फिर हसेंगे कभी आना थोड़ी बाते करेंगे PS: My first attempt at writing a poem in Hindi. I have been trying to write one for so long, I just couldn't find the words. I mean literally. As much as I would like to think, my Hindi is apparently not that great when it comes to writing. And there is something about writing poems in the language that adds the dimension of depth that I just don't feel in English. This is just the first draft. I hope to finish it soon. 

It's day 3 at my new job and having smiled at so many people these days, my face now hurts. I have also become very proficient in giving a concise introduction of myself, I believe the word dog has received quite a good response from people, so I tend to talk about that a lot. Lucky for me, my team is full of dog lovers. I haven't met all of them yet, but the ones I've met so far really love dogs! So I am sitting for lunch, having recited my regular, Me - "Hi! I am Arushi, recently joined the ITS Team. I have a pet dog...." People - "Ohh so cute! I love dogs too"  and you know where the conversation goes from there. We all somehow got past the topic and I returned to my "I am new here" awkward smile. Somebody notices my left-handedness, and we start talking about that. Yes! I am left-handed. I am supposed to be creative! Ha! You haven't seen me draw an apple then. I can manage to put together a decent sentence though. So, one...

The Weekend I wasn't able to finish this 30 day challenge. But I really did like it, I think I am going to try another one soon. I am not going to be able to finish all the posts, so I though I'd make one post and try to cover at least a few of the topics. #24 - 3 books on my bookshelf Factfullness - Hans Rosling (Currently reading and desperately trying to finish) Why am I a Hindu - Shashi Tharoor  Dark Places - Gillian Flynn #25 - What I would find in my blog My blog isn't about anything particular. I write about things that make me think, a really great conversation, my life in general, me reminiscing, my rants sprinkled with a few poems! I mostly write when I am overwhelmed by something. That gets the typewriter in my head going. Plus now I have a real one too. Yay. If you were to browse through my blog, you might find something about integrity, friendship and love, feminism, rain, Goa, Friends (TV show), cooking, questions I am contemplating and m...

You know confidence is very important for a person in their life. How confident you are, impacts almost everything in your life. It is something that reflects in your personality. And what is more important is being self-confident. If you don't believe in yourself, then life my friend is going to be tough. I have come to realize that self-confidence needs to come from within and cannot be based on your validation by other people in life. I have been struggling with this for a while. I have always felt like an under-confident person most of my adult life. It's not like I shy away from conversations or am socially awkward. I am actually pretty social, more so when I am a little comfortable with my surroundings. My self-confidence right now is shaky at best. It is extremely fragile and can tumble with the tiniest of puffs of air. If you've ever played one of those games that require you to make a building and when you go really high and/or misplace a house, your entire bu...

#19 Nicknames you have; why you have them Well, my joining date got moved up a week so I might not be able to finish all of these, but I will try. I might combine a few into one article itself. So the numbering might be a little off. So, nicknames huh. I have quite a few I guess. Well, my name is Arushi Pandey. I'll just start listing them down one by one; Pandey, Pandey Ji, Aru, Chotu, Shiro, Rushi, Popu, Bache, Shiri are the ones that are coming to mind right now,  Actually, most people get their nicknames from their names, in my case, it was the other way around. I was named Aru first and that is where Arushi came from. My mother and my brother were taking harmonium lessons when my mother was pregnant with me. Her teacher was a blind man, whose next student was Aru. My mother liked that name so much that she decided to give me that name.  Chotu is a nickname that a lot of people have called me over the years. The reason is simple for this one. I am short or ...

# 15 Put your iPod on shuffle. First 10 songs that play This would actually be fun if I had my old iPod with me. It has songs from so many genres and eras that would be left astonished by my taste in music. My iPhone barely has any so this might be a weird list!  O Saathi Grenade - Bruno Mars Hey Jude - Beatles Main Rahoon ya na rahoon - Gulshan Kumar Do din hi madhu mujhe pilakar - Manna Dey (This is a part of Madhushala) Kanha - Shubh Mangal Saavdhan Love you Zindagi - Dear Zindagi Bane Pujari premi saqi - Manna Dey (This is a part of Madhushala) Jiyen Kyun - Dum Maaro Dum Fernando - ABBA