My New Year's Resolutions

The dawn of a new year is just round the corner. A new year, a new beginning. Rather befitting for me since I am getting married this year and thus will begin my endeavors into a new world. A new world with a new family, my family. And with this beginning comes a few resolutions. My New Year’s resolutions.

Living a successful relationship is an art, living three successful relationships, the masterpiece. And that’s what I am planning to do successfully on this new year. The relationships that I share with my new family, my old family with my Mom and Dad and my extended family, which constitutes of my Mother-in-law, Father-in-law and my Sister-in-law. So that’s one of my New Year’s resolutions.

Career wise I would like to become more career-wise. Would love to pass the Google Adwords test this year. Been delaying for long. Would start writing content for 3rd party content providers like InstaMedia. That would get me some extra bucks other than providing me with an opportunity to sharpen my writing skills. That comes second in the list of my New Year’s resolution.

Financially, I would like to become a lot more stable than what I am today. Financial security one of the keys to a successful and happy relationship. Would try to go for some future investments. For leisure, would like to take a vacation and head over to the hills in Bhutan. Heard that it’s a nice, romantic place. Would like to see if it really lives upto its name.

Will check back at the end of next year with a checklist in my hand to know how many of these resolutions I have fulfilled. Hope you would be there with me on that day too. Till then, why don’t you tell me some of your New Year’s resolutions.

El Condor Pasa

Today is the 1st of December, the beginning of the last month of the year. The month that proclaims the beginning of the end, the dawn of another year. The prelude to the beginning of new dreams, new responsibilities, new memories, faiths, friends, moments. A coup de grace that puts an end to some nightmares. An epilogue that inaugurates a new season, the season of love, of friendship, joy and enduring happiness of myriad colors.

What a year it was, 2011. Eventful, to say the least. Ofcourse not without some occasional bitterness but those were just the reminder of the customary light at the end of the tunnel. This is the year I found my love, my life, an event that in itself was a milestone in the walk of my life. This year I found the long lost treasure trove of friendship, thanks to Jinia that I got introduced to some nice people who came in my life and became a part of it, a part that I had always missed in this jigsaw called life. Some of them deserves special mention, but I would not like to discriminate friendship in toto. All I would like to say is that I love you all, dearly. Be with me, always, so that I can rediscover the admiring human bond of friendship everyday for the rest of my life.

Professionally this year was lucrative. I happen to imbibe a lot at PwC as far process knowledge was concerned. I realized once again that learning can be one of the most interesting vocation. I climbed a few more rung on the corporate ladder. I achieved a few more feathers on my cap when it came to my amateurish blogging career. The Chronicles of R got listed on the Best Indian Blogs directory maintained by Amit Agarwal and on the Life section of Alltop. So in a way I became a lot more Blog-wise.

This year I happen to discover Calcutta (not Kolkata, it would always remain Calcutta for me) thanks to Jinia once again. From the blind alleys of Shovabazar to the porche interiors of Trincas and Mocambos, I found a new face of Calcutta and I got to see my face in it. Without Jinia I never would have been a part of those purple evenings at Vineet's, at Polu's and ofcourse at Sho's (you know who I am talking about, don't you). Time flew in leaps and bounds and for the first time in my life I wished that there were 30 hours in a day instead of just a mere 24, things would have been way more happening then, wouldn't it Jinia?

Now comes the two most important people (read: women) in my life without mentioning whom my life would remain incomplete. Ria and Jinia. They constitute my life. Without them nothing would have been possible. Jinia have been a constant source of inspiration for me, she understood me more than I did. It was her love that made me move on during those difficult moments, it was her constant unyielding support that helped me dream those impossibilities. It was Jinia who I would say taught me to laugh, not with my voice but with my heart. She is and, knowing her would always, be a constant source of joy and love in my life. Now comes Ria, the real beauty if you might remember. Everytime I took her on my lap, her face lit up with joy and she broke into a laughter or a simple smile and my heart ached , knowing how much I missed her all these years. I love you two, more than you would ever know, more than I would ever realize.

Its time to move on and embrace the new. A new year, a new spirit, a new hope, without letting go of what there was. Because what we are is because of what we were, we learnt from what we had that what we can have. I know its a little to early to wish you a happy new year, but then its never too late to wish you a very happy new beginning!

High on Life at Alltop

A few years back I was found myself overjoyed to see The Chronicles of R on the list of Geeks on Alltop. But a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. I have stopped writing geeky stuff on The Chronicles of R and so you won't find The Chronicles of R under the Geeks section on Alltop anymore.

And today when I was checking my inbox, to my utter surprise I found out that The Chronicles of R has been included in Alltop once again! And this time, I am on Alltop Life! Time to celebrate again, guess yes. Two reasons, first, I am back on Alltop, second, Life tops Geeks as far as PR is concerned (Life has a PR 4 whereas Geeks, a mere 3).

What's more, I have my own Alltop page too!

So if you want to read some of the hottest and most interesting stories on the net at one place, don't forget to visit my Alltop page and give it a heads-up on Facebook or tweet about it on Twitter if you like it.

Best of Me

Many of you might not know that I have another blog called Of Love, Life and Other Unimportant Things. It's an Ad-free blog. It has it's own readership base. I am writing in it for while now, so today I thought about providing the links to some of my popular posts from that blog. Click on these photographs and you would be taken to that page where you have the story related to this photograph. Read them and enjoy the ride!

Bad Dreams of Love

"My dreams have a tendency to go bad when I am not watching them." - Max Payne

My Dream Break

When my results came out for my grads, it was as I had expected. I did not pass out with flying colors. The subjects were fine with me, mugging was not. But the Indian education system expects you to have a good memory, not brains. And I never had a good memory. I taught some of my fellow classmates while I was doing my +2. They did pass out with good results, so in a way I was satisfied.

On D-Day (R-Day rather) the moment I came out of my college I wanted to give R the good news. And although we never spoke at the instant as she was in office, I did send her an sms. Sometimes when you know that a person wants to listen to you, even if she is not on the other end of the line you don't feel the difference! Love can be so fulfilling, isn't it?

After my results I was under pressure to pursue a career, most importantly a job. The job became a necessity, more so because I was freshly out of my previous job with ICICI because of my accident. So I started searching for jobs in domestic Call Centers under her advice. Me, a friend of mine, Santosh, one of his friends, Sumit who had recently come down from Delhi after his campaign in a Call Center went out of business, the three musketeers started looking for a job in Calcutta. Every now and then the three of us were to be found in the interview venue together. But life was not that easy, and we went for rounds and rounds and rounds of interview before it happened.

One fine morning while I was sitting back at my Aunt's, Santosh called me up saying whether I was interested in appearing for an interview for a Delhi based company. Neki aur pooch pooch! So in an hour or so, the three of us met outside Hotel Hindustan International which was the venue that day for the interview. We never knew anything about it except for the fact that Sumit, being from Delhi, told us that it was one of the best companies in Noida. It was only half way through the interview that we came to know the name of the company, ExL Service and they were hiring for a Tech Support Process.

Although I was not sure about Santosh and myself, but I was pretty sure of Sumit getting through the interview. Afterall he had prior experience in the Call Center industry. R's phone was out of balance and so was unreachable. I am talking about 2003, at that time the Lifetime pre-paid offers were just a dream, at that time we were even charged for incoming calls, and so I was feeling a little down.

When I went inside the venue, the excitement died down completely. There were BTechs, CCNAs, CCNPs that went to try their luck there. I was looking like a big fat lump of lard sitting in between them with a mediocre BSc degree. It was one of the most tiring day of my life, the interview process was completed by nothing less than 12:30AM. That was the first day of my life that I had stayed out of my place till such wee hours at night, everyone back home were worried.

We were first interviewed by an recruitment agency and then by the HR of that company. The HR was a pretty looking girl, Nandini. So in the one-to-one round with the HR, I had to act smart. I went through the HR round in a breeze *ahem*. In the final round, which was a telephonic interview with a Group Leader from Delhi. His name was Aakash Chowdhury. A very soft spoken guy and one of the most knowledgeable person I have ever met in my life. He asked me several questions, a few of which I never knew but was not afraid of admitting the same to him. Then he asked me a very stupid question, does the resolution of a computer depends on the Monitor? I said of course it does not and went ahead to give him quite a global gyan about what is resolution and how to go about increasing it. In the end, he said that I was brilliant because out of all those BTechs, CCNAs and CCNPs, I was the only person who answered that question correctly. Surprising! So finally I got through.

Was it sheer luck? Was it my ability to convince people? Or was it my computer skills? I still don't know. But whatever it was, it gave me a dream break that many people would die for. I was selected to be a Tech Support Associate in ExL Service for their DELL campaign. My first official job, with DELL. A reason good enough to fly high up in the air, above the clouds.

Winston Rand, He Was A Pretty Good Guy

This post was due for a long time. But somehow I was eluding it. Because I was not ready to accept the fact that Winston is not there with us anymore. And even when I was writing this, my heart was still not ready to accept that hard truth. That's why even though Winston passed away on June 28th last year, it's now, after almost 9 months that I have sat down to write about him. And even now the wound seems fresh and tears fills my eyes.

Winston Rand was an acquaintance and a fellow blogger. I came across his blog Nobody Asked, his The Center For Artificial Indifference while searching on Google. He was one of the most down-to-earth person I have ever seen. Winston had a very good sense of humor. And maybe that was why when I first read on his blog about the news of his passing away I simply refused to believe it. It was last December while I was going through his blog after a long time did I realize that Winston was not going to write anymore.

Winston first introduced himself to his readers as:

I live in the Nashville TN area with two blondes: one is the cuddliest cocker spaniel you’ll ever meet; the other, the love-of-my-life, and a REAL writer, claims most days to be my spouse; for purposes of this present body of work, I’ll refer to the former as “Dog” and the latter as “Roomie”.

Ironically, the last post on his blog was written by Roomie herself. She did the brave task of telling the world about it's great loss, about her great loss.

Winston's favorite song was "The Rainbow Connection," by Kermit the Frog, as well as a bluegrass version of Rocky Top. Winston…he was a "pretty good guy." This is how he wanted everyone to remember him. It's almost unbelievable how we get attached to a person through his writing. Otherwise why would I cry for Winston Rand living in Nashville TN whom I only knew through his blog! But like many others, I love Winston, as a blogger, as a friend, but above all as a human being.

Dear Readers, this is an earnest request from me. I want you to send your heartfelt condolences to Roomie and her family. Her lost is unrecoverable, but we can and would pray for her, her family, and for Winston, that his soul may rest in peace.

Everyone, please repeat this out loud. WINSTON RAND…HE WAS A PRETTY GOOD GUY.

Blooming Love

Sometimes the support from a stranger works miracles, she was a miracle. She still is. R used to work in a domestic Call Center in Calcutta near AJC Bose Road. A meritorious student, her ambitions were soon marred by the socio-political structure of our country after she passed out. So we were sailing in the same boat, although I would say that she was a much better struggler than I was. And she never fell short off optimism, atleast not for me.

It was a late night at home. Everyone was asleep except for me. I was still recovering from that accident which almost killed me. I was watching a movie on Cable when my phone buzzed. It was an SMS from Indiatimes chat. I had registered there feeling bored with life and nothing else to do, my computer was broke after an unfortunate power surge.

It was R's first SMS for me. She wanted to be my friend. And since then I never had to turn back to anyone else for friendship, love and solace. She was always there for me, always. At times for me, she even forgot her own self!

Her introduction was short, sweet and crisp. And it never took me time to sweep her off her feet with my inborn charm of a true Libran *ahem* Slowly one thing came to the other and we never knew when, but we fell madly in love with eachother.

We used to meet near Forum Shopping Mall, it was the most convenient place for her as it was a 10 minutes walk from her workplace. And moreover we had a place to sit on a crescent shaped marble chair so that we could get lost in eachother's eyes.

R and I mainly used to talk over the phone, we hardly used go out together. Reason being, she had her office, and I was not used to dating or hanging out with someone. Come to think of it now I think it was a blunder, the times we shared could have been much better. And she deserved a lot more than that.

It was because of R that I became an SMS junkie, I still have an incredible text-ing speed of 70 wpm. Mostly we used to chat during late nights, when the whole world was asleep. The world dreamt in their sleep, we dreamt lying awake.

I still remember that night. It was one of the most memorable night for me. I was waiting for her SMS and all the while twisting and turning in my bed. All of a sudden a gust of cold breeze hit me hard on my face. My bedroom is on the 4th floor and it has 2 big windows in it just next to my bed. The windows open to the houses nearby, but those houses are at a distance. And in between there are lots of greens. No, I don't mean we have a money making press here, I mean trees, plain simple green tress. So during the monsoon I enjoyed watching rain from my bedroom.

Later that night all hell broke loose. It started raining cats and dogs, and it seemed that that night the cats and dogs were having the fight of their lives. But I was too lazy to get out of my bed to close the windows. So the occasional gust of wind which brought in the monsoon shower through the window drenched me from head to toe, but I paid no heed to it. Rather I was secretly enjoying it while hiding under my quilt.

Monsoon can bring the poet and the lover inside you. The poet because the virgin nature, bathed, offers you her body to write on, to write upon. Lover, because the dampness of the monsoon brings with it a sense of warmth. You want to snuggle up close with some someone for warmth, you want to hide your face behind her ears and hold her fragrance forever inside you. And you can take my word for it, during monsoon, the lover is not romantic, the monsoon love can be pretty wild.

That night when we finally started chatting it was still raining, and in that ambiance we forgot the concept of time and that she would have to go to her office the next morning. We played a little game of textual Antakshari. She would write a song and send it to me, I would write a song and send it to her. Childish, isn't it? Yes, there is a kid hiding somewhere inside her which only I can find.

That night, I would not say I was in heaven, but wherever I was I never wanted to come back to reality.

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Jab We Met

In the backdrop of the Vidyasagar Setu, the sky had painted itself with myriad colors. Yellow, pink, brick red and finally blue. It looked like a chameleon, trying to hide itself within the arms of night.

It was a summer evening in 2003, I was standing on the terrace of our apartment. My final year exams were over for good, although the results were not declared by then. The college said it would take another 2-3 weeks, and maybe another 3-4 years to actually get the Pass Certificate. Calcutta University *sigh*.

We had recently shifted to this apartment. New place, new people. And finally, not only I had my own bedroom but a bed to sleep on. Over the past couple of years I got too tired of sleeping on the floor of the living room.

I was searching, like everyone else of my age then, for a job. Whoever lives here would know that that's one thing which is hard to come by in Calcutta. Although then I never had high hopes for myself, what can I possibly get with only a BSc degree to boast about! Fine, I had some fancy Tech certifications below my belt, and a 6 months experience as a faculty for a group of students hungry to learn C/C++ with the most boring eyes I had ever seen in my life. But those are simply nothing. No one wants to see what you actually knew, they always wanted some fancy degrees. So the search was on, and while admiring the beauty of the summer evening, the nagging feeling was still there at the back of my mind.

After a few days I did get a job. It was with a franchisee of ICICI bank personal loans division. But right out of grad school, I was not pretty sure how long would I be able to survive with this. Nonetheless I gave it a try, and failed! Miserably. I could not convert a single lead. And after a week or so one fine day, while I was returning to office to report to my manager about my yet another day of failure, I had a major accident. You see, I was not quite used to traveling by buses. But I had to, and that day while getting down from the bus I twisted my ankle and fell out of the bus. I would have nearly got run over by it had it been no for the fellow passengers hollers. The moment they saw me disappear below the bus they started shouting for the driver to stop the bus, and so he did, thankfully.

I could not go back to office, I could not even walk. Called up for emergency, and when I went back home I was feeling frustrated. With myself, with the world, with everything. And as a result I went into hibernation for the next 2 weeks, sitting back at home, pondering over what had happened.

That was when I met R for the first time.

The 25 Random Things Meme

This is the 25 things meme that is taking rounds of the internet for quite some time now. Yes, I have put a THE in front of it as it had become so popular that a search in Google would reveal 1,460,000 results, so we should put some respect to it. So without further ado here are the 25 random things about me that you were better off not knowing.

1. I can read, write and speak fluently in 3 languages. In fact I speak English and Hindi way better than Bengali, which is my mother tongue.

2. I am scared of ghosts, noisy firecrackers and thunder.

3. My right foot is slightly smaller than the left one due to an accident during my childhood days. Although it's invisible to the naked eye.

4. My sunsign is Libra whereas my moonsign is Gemini.

5. I used to be an amateur palmist.

6. My favorite season is monsoon.

7. I had taken courses in singing from a Guru for for almost 3 months. Then I sort of got bored of Rabindrasangeet.

8. I have a secret crush on Kareena Kapoor. Okay, now it's not a secret anymore.

9. Although I love to say that I am an open book, more often than not people have complained that I am the most difficult read.

10. I am hypersensitive and a bit too emotional. I still cry seeing the lamest movies in the theater.

11. My favorite subject since my school days is Computer Science. I always wanted to be a Computer Engineer.

12. My first computer was rechristened by R as Celu. It was a Celeron 1.2 GHz.

13. I am a divorcee.

14. I have taken professional training in Kyukoshikan form of Karate for almost 2 years when I was in school.

15. I have been to all the metros in India except for Mumbai.

16. I don't forgive, neither do I forget.

17. I am a self-confessed chauvinist and egoist.

18. I am an ardent fan of WWE.

19. I am a born loner.

20. I hate to be left alone. I want myself to be surrounded by friends.

21. Yes, my left ear is pierced. It's not a falsetto.

22. I feel fascinated by nature, women, words and technology.

23. I consider myself to be a love-sick puppy.

24. My favorite food is Biriyani and Meetha-Dahi.

25. I hate lizards and liars. I consider them fall in the same rank.