The Art of Waiting In Queue (Or You Are In Queue, Please Wait)

Once upon a time I used to hate waiting in queues. Bank teller counters, ration shops, railway booking counters, Hospitals etc etc etc... Queues were every where.

Now I don't care! One because I don't have all those queues to deal with. I rarely visit the bank, what with net banking and private banking managers. Ration shops are a thing of the past. At least as far as I am concerned. Hospitals don't have queues. I call up, get an appointment and go meet the Doctor. Most Railway tickets are booked on the net or Padmaja sends her office boy.

Secondly, I have learned the Art Of Waiting In Queues!

I had to go to the Nampally Railway Station this morning to cancel my train tickets and had to deal with the queues there. But I was nonchalant! I started preparations last night :-)

Steps followed:

1. Update the iPod with the current favorites and make sure it is fully charged.
2. Load the cell phone with the current book I am reading and make sure the phone is charged.
3. Figure out what clothes to wear. This is very important if you have to wait in a queue in the heat of summer and the idiot behind you insists on pushing all the time in the belief that this will somehow speed up the process.
4. Tell self that the damn queue is not going to be a problem. Remind self again in the morning. And again when I get to the station and see how many other idiots are ahead of me.
   

At's all there is to it! With Jagjit Singh crooning in my ears and a good book on the phone, I wasn't worried! The mandatory idiot-behind-me-who-keeps-pushing-and-smells-of-sweat-and-has-bad-breath did not disturb my composure! I did not twiddle my thumbs. No Sir. Not me! I used one of them to push up the volume of the iPod and the other to navigate to the next page of my novel.

I was tranquility personified! I didn't bother to glance at the head of the queue even once! I didn't compulsively keep counting the number of people in front of me. I did not glance at my watch at all let alone time the processing rate!

I have truly learned the Art of Waiting In Queues!

The Staircase And Bablu

Bablu, my 3 year old son, had a bad fall yesterday evening. He was riding his bicycle and lost control near the staircase. Fell down a flight of steps and banged his head rather bad. Luckily Padmaja had just arrived and was riding up in the lift. I was on my way home and about 3 mins away. He is fine now but gave us a bad fright last night.

My greatest fear is that if the kids have an accident at home while we are work, it will take us a minimum of 30 minutes to get home (Saifabad to Srinagar Colony for Padmaja & from Madhapur for I). Both our offices are about 8 kms from home but traffic is so bad that it will take at least half an hour to get home. During peak hours it can take as much as 45 minutes!

I am frightened of even thinking about what can happen in that 30 mins.

Oriya new Year Celebration @ Kalinga Samaj, Hyderabad

Kalinga Cultural Trust, Hyderabad is celebrating Oriya New Years Day on 14th April 2007 at 19.00 hours at our Kalinga Cultural Center (Plot No.1269, Road No.12, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad-34.

The Programme is as follows:

Time Programme
19.00 hours Odissi Dance
21.00 hours Dinner

Maha Sivaratri Flowers!

Padmaja has a large collection of plants in pots. Some time ago she had planted a Hibiscus in the balcony attached to the children's bedroom.

The plant bloomed for the very first time on Maha Sivaratri.

3 Friends, 20 Years

I recently met Vineet Chadha after a very long. He was in Hyderabad on business and had stopped by Sandip's house before catching his flight back to Mumbai.

Sandip has posted about this reunion on his blog.

Brahmin Priests Thrown Out Of Temple Land!

The Srinagar Colony temple complex is on the top of a small hill. The temple priests had small houses just outside the main compound wall of the Balaji temple. They have lived there for quit some time. I have been visiting this temple complex for about a decade now.

Last week I visited the temple to get a new scared thread for myself. I spoke to one of the priests cleaning the temple and he asked me to wait for a while while he finished sweeping the temple. I was walking around when I noticed that the houses on the other side of the wall had been demolished!



I turned to the priest in a state of shock and asked him what had happened. The poor guy sighed and said "What to do? The temple authorities have decided to build a new marriage mandapam in that space!".

The shock must have shown on my face for he continued "All the priests are now staying in different places. Indranagar, Yousufguda, Motinagar etc. They have to pay heavy rent. God knows what will happen to us!"



Money! The temple authorities have thrown out the temple priests to make way for a commercial complex!

What is this country coming to? Is this how we treat our priests?

New Table Lamps For Mamli & Bablu

We recently bought a new study table for Mamli. I took her old table to use as a computer table and gave my computer table to Bablu. Mamli had a nice florescent tube earlier but the new table was too tall for the older lamp. I had to device a new lamp setup for her. This time I decided to be a little creative and built her a lamp from a L angle and an old plastic kitchen container.




Padmaja has made a nice little cloth fringe for the new lamps. I don't have a photo of that now.

Bablu's new lamp was in blue.

No Smoking

Sri Vijaya Industries will not smoke on our office premises!