Another trip... off to Chennai! :)

There is something about Indian train journeys that make you want to wear pants that are a feet up from your ankle, sleeves that you can roll up and shoes which are made of plastic! And i am going to embark on one such journey down south from New Delhi tomorrow... 

Indian junta on trains eat and throw fruit peels, shells of peanuts, tissue papers..(worst of all ) empty packets of wafers and chips around and inside the boogies ... right next to where they are seated as though they and everybody else traveling with them are part of a moving dust-bin! 

The toilets are in a state that disgusts me even while typing here and i am sure it would to you while reading!.. In simple terms it is YUCK! People don't flush, many trains do not have sufficient tankers with water for this purpose, there is nothing called hand-soaps available, many doors don't lock, the mugs in the toilets are not really touchable. The waste lands on the train tracks!!! eeeeeeeeeesh! A country with countless sharp brains just cannot, it seems, find a way towards effective waste management! 

So, well... hmm.. i know being a native i should think up of a solution! Join in the politics and work for rail development etc etc... But that road is filled with filth as well! - That, under all circumstances is an understatement!

Job posting!

I know posting a job opening on ones blog is almost useless, unless someone is really following and is qualified and interested! But if you do by any chance qualify... feel free to revert!

• Qualified German translator (4-5 years experience preferred)
• Know German technical translation ( Information technology based translation experience)
• Located in Bangalore, India 
• Ready to freelance or join full-time
• Have daily translation speed of around 2000 or more words ( the least one can expect!)

You can contact me on that for more details, company details etc. Its part of what i do! So feel free to write or mail in!

 

Direct Charity

I moved to South Africa in Sep' 10 after marriage and it was an obvious event to empty or reduce my belongings at home in New Delhi, India. Packing, moving and downsizing ones possessions is obviously a painful task to do! It takes enormous amounts of time, and one has to contemplate and re-contemplate on what to keep and what to give away... the re-usability of certain obvious junk ( sometimes old bits of cloth or tools) is to be evaluated.

So i worked myself out in throwing a sizable chunk before getting married and moving out.... and now in my subsequent trip i am throwing out another and significant portion of the 'i am still around' junk.... phewwww!

It makes one wonder the amount of useless things we accumulate without knowing. Just because we have been staring at something for say 5 years ( which obviously looks ugly and old now, and still has no use) we keep it, don't even move it around! Atleast my family doesn't... It all transcends into my now seemingly forever quest to lighten up the house of these things... sigh! 

I know my folks don't have the energy to do the needful, so perhaps its OK! 

Then comes the problem of whom to give the 'to be thrown out' stuff to?!And since we have always had low chances of luck with the obnoxious Delhi house-maids, i resorted to direct charity on the roads! Literally filled my car with all these things piled into packets and gave 'em off to beggars on traffic lights, some i even gave to ladies seen working on the roads ( atleast they are not begging!), to kids forced into child-labor etc. 

Just the simple act of doing that filled me with a sense of charity! 

Let me quote someone who said "Being rich is the ability to give away"... totally forgot whose quote that is 'coz i remember reading it somewhere! Well, if its not really said by anybody lets call it the new quote by yours truly, of the day!!

 

Some of my favourite winter things...

New Delhi, my birth place and home has always had awesome winters ( except years when it wasn't as cold as one would expect or want it to be, 'coz of the global warming and what not).... but well it's ideally a lovely set up to have steaming hot mugs of coffee and tea, nicely tucked up in a quilt or swathed with layers of woolen wear and munch on home made pakodas or aalo ka parathas... not to forget Gajar ka halwa... yummmmmm!! Always, just Always gets my mouth watering!

One other thing that i love about winters at home is the smell of old, well preserved pages of novels - reading on 'em by a window on a relaxed wintery afternoon and bathing in sunshine that streams in!... dreamy aye .. absolutely dreamy!!!!!!!!!!!