Tag: life

After nearly 3 weeks of grueling 18 hour days, yesterday was a day when we did not have things lined up to be completed before the day end… in fact we had nothing lined up.

Aasim returned from Delhi on Saturday evening; suddenly grown-up in some ways – 20 days is the longest he has stayed away from us but we were glad that he was enjoying with his uncles while we were overloaded with work.

Entire this year up till now has been driven by a single goal – getting the new home+office completed!  Every other activity including bird watching and photography was put on hold, not only because there was so much to do but also because for the first time we were executing a project which depended on future cashflow projections.

After seemingly everything has been listed and accounted and then a margin added, things turn up which inflate your budget – this we were warned of by many people.  However  I am extremely relieved to say that though things did turn up there were enough areas where we had over budgeted and the final tally is going to be within the estimate which we made in November 2006. There were some scary moments but thanks to each of our clients every projected payment came through and then some more… …

While the office shifted on 1st of this month, shifting the home to the new house will still take a few weeks but we are there for all practical purposes – shifting is like making a software live – no matter how many tests you did – there are always bugs,  you can only minimize the number. For the office too there have been minor irritants like water leaking from a couple of places in the glazed windows, condensation on AC dripping when humidity is 80% but they appear to have been solved for now.

A couple of days ago we noticed that there is a brood of 3 just of of nest Shikra chicks which play in the garden – it is fun to watch them as they play aerial  tag, scream for parents or just hop around utterly unafraid. Coming Sunday I intend to go around the forest which is almost encircles the new house…

We have also been busy writing on the SANIsoft blog in the past few days

• Paperwork and Procedures
• Multilingual apps with CakePHP
• MediaWiki Gotcha
• Showing combobox option instead of value in editor grid for extjs
• Use cake console with LAMPP
• PHP array to JSON in CakePHP

Yes, I do intend to update this journal more often

Most of the things are now revolving around getting a fix on the final budget for the house. We don’t want to compromise on things but at the same time the budget is not limitless and damn the things we are liking are expensive….

Saturday evening we had a barbecue party with some friends coming over. Lovely King prawns, Fish grilled wrapped in Banana leaf, Malay fish curry, Chicken satay and of course the regular fav marinades from Swati. It was supplemented by some excellent wine which one of our friend got.

Yesterday morning we took about 25 kids from Aasim’s school and an equal number of adults for bird watching. Did not spot anything unusual but the kids were thrilled.

Rest of the day was spent doing… Nothing.

My taking steroids for my arthralgia was in vain, not only in vain but detrimental, the medicine has just about been tapered off and I can feel all the aches and pains returning add to it an inch and a half around my tummy.

So life goes on. We have decided that all three of us will come to Bangalore on 21st rather than me and Aasim following on 23rd, things at office, by amazing stroke of luck are tranquil for now.

Since past few days I have taken up learning to dance – just a bit of jiving nothing much. But for once I am not on top of the group in a chosen activity… I knew this was going to happen. While my hands and body can be rock steady when holding a scalpel or for that matter a camera I cant move in rhythm even if the sky was falling.

I am doing this not only for myself but also to show Aasim that even his dad has to struggle and does not give up so easily.

I learnt to drive a car when I was 14, the car was owned by my aunt (my mother’s youngest sister) who was a doctor and that was the only car amongst the near relatives our middle middle class family. One day a couple of months after my mother’s death my aunt had come with some relatives and I as usual took off for a joy ride on returning one of the relatives remarked “Beta apane abba ke haisiyat ke shoak rakho ge to accha ho ga” literally translated it means “Son it would be better if have interests/habits as per the status of your dad” I was 15 then, looking back I feel, may be, it was well intentioned but at that moment it stung worse than a slap in public and I swore that the next car I will touch would be my own.

A couple of years from then I purchased *my* own mobike, yes I was under age but things could be managed in the good old days 😉 It was a Black Hero Honda from the first lot to hit Indian roads, well worth my savings from N number of years. The freedom/thrill of a mobike decreased the covetousness of a car. I toured the four corners of the country on that bike…

When I got married, Swati had a car from her office. It served us well and it was more convenient for me to sit while she drove, besides she was scared of me driving – her quote till date is “You drive as if you are in a video game!!” but to my credit I drove her around during her pregnancy and when the day came I took her to the hospital as well.

Cut to last year – we got a Wagon R for Swati which I did not drive either.

However of late I realised that it is too much work for her to drive around doing all the things and all I currently had was a bicycle which limited my range considerably. So to balance the things a bit, yesterday I went to RTO to get my two wheeler license renewed (you have to do that when you are 40) and while I was at it I also appeared for and passed the driving test for a car!

So now I am officially licensed to drive a car on Indian roads and while I can pretty much afford any car in the market I don’t think I am buying one… a new mobike yes may be!