Life After College!!

It has been a long, long time since I’ve given time to my blogging passions… Not that I did not have anything to write about – quite the contrary, really… what I did not have was the time for it. Interpreted simply and truthfully, I don’t have the time to spend on myself any longer, quite like I’d expected while leaving my Pune days behind.

Life has taken its expected turn… it has made me “the busy corporate lady” that most of us aspire to become these days… but nothing comes without a price tag these days – and I’ve paid for it with my own personal time.

I have noticed something – ever since I got placed in December ’06, my ambition has been charting the course of my life, rather than me charting the course of my ambitions… Today, I have decided to break free for once.

Right now, I have two options… a) to sit and complete my office work that would urgently be needed tomorrow, or b) to sit and do what I feel like doing right now. After ages, I chose the latter path…

Now that the introductions are over, I don’t know where to start!!! Such a lot has happened since the last time I wrote here… I have of course joined my new office, met new people there, spent some great times at home and outside with my kid bro, had a few fabulous outings with my close family members, explored a whole new city as part of my first official trip, and more or less managed to sail through even the busiest stretches of office hours!

Phew… that’s quite a lot!!

Let me deal with one thing at a time. Starting with my office – since that is the newest thing in my life as of now!

Being with India’s No. 1 real estate company does feel good, I must say – and the credit especially goes to the kind of work I’m doing! I never imagined I could enjoy myself so much with Land Laws! Apart from the work (which leaves precious little scope for anything else anyway!) there are my colleagues. Nice people! My bumpy rides in office are pretty much smoothed out thanks to a fat lot of help from them! Honestly, had it not been for them, office might not have been half as enjoyable…

My first official trip… ah! This was something I was eagerly waiting for! When I was offered a position with this company, the prime attraction of the job for me had been the fact that it was not just a desk job – I would have to go on official tours in and around the state! And boy, the first such trip came my way sooner than expected!

The Lingaraja Temple - The only place of tourist interest

that I managed to visit!!

Admittedly, Bhubaneshwar is not a new place to me – but I’d only visited the place as a tourist before this. And I believe you can’t really know a city unless you stay there as a localite – tourist attractions will always be just that, an attraction that will hold you mesmerized! But to get the real feel of a city, you need to stay there for a while, among the local people, in the local atmosphere… which is exactly what this trip provided me with! Bhubaneshwar came across to me as quite a friendly, neat and clean, albeit small, city. Did not really find much of a specialty in the city, but somehow, ended up liking it!

One time I’d remember forever in that entire trip was my last evening in the city. A colleague of mine had invited me over to his place for dinner and drinks. It was a memorable evening with him, his adorable little daughter, Sania, all of two years, and his amazing wife!

Once I got back here from Bhubaneswar, there was a very important thing that I needed to do – something I’d been neglecting ever since I’d come back home from Pune… To spend time with my loved ones!

My sweet li’l cousin bro (I call him Bhaitu) had been eagerly awaiting my homecoming so that he could spend some time with me – and a treat was definitely due to him… so I’d promised to myself that at the first opportunity I got, he would get his dues. So, an amazing outing with him and another cousin sister of mine happened! The three of us caught up with Spiderman III at Inox, and had a ball of a time there!

Next in line were his parents, my Mamu (not to be interpreted in the same sense as the one mentioned in Munna Bhai…!) and Maima – my maternal Uncle and Aunt… so the next weekend was spent having a grand family outing with Mom, Mamu, Maima, Bhaitu and Monica!

A Pic of the Sunset We Watched

We went to the Millenium Park first… I was pretty excited since this was my first visit to the Park. Ever since it had been pressed into operations, I’d wanted to go there, but predictably enough, I had no time to do so! At the Park, we witnessed a lovely sundown… the kind that holds you rapt and mesmerized, and the kind that you generally don’t get to see in the hustly-bustly jungle of concrete sky scrapers in metros…

An Illuminated Ship Silhoutted against the Evening Sky

The Floatel - First Floating Hotel of India!

Then, we moved on to the Floatel. This was my first visit to this place too... It is India's first ever floating hotel, and I must say I was quite impressed with what I saw!! The place does live up to the promise it makes, and I felt very much at “sea” there!!! And of course, the Floatel renewed my belief in the old, old saying: "What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow!"

What with the feeling of being in a ship with Cabin Crew elegantly dressed in the typical white uniforms, and the shimmering waves of water beneath us, the Floatel definitely was a hit with us!

Well, that was precisely what I’d been upto for so long… and now that I’ve penned it down, it does feel great to get back into the groove of blogging!!!