Though I am a lean girl making a lot of people think I am a sickly person, fortunately for me, am not ….I would say, am much healthier than most people who claim to have a good diet, who travel less…and in fact, going by the sick leave stats, I would consider myself healthier than most in office who don’t miss a chance to give me some “tips” or should I say “advice” (unasked for) regarding my food habits….based on their assumption that I don’t have enough food….:)
I had almost forgotten how it would be to fall sick…that was until a few days ago…I can cope with a bout of fever or headache… there is just one thing that can make me go flat in a matter of minutes…it is the only illness I seem to suffer from with unfailing regularity…once in a while, my tummy decides to lodge a protest …and that would result in a severe bout of diarrhea, vomiting…and the climax would be a few minutes of unconsciousness….all these would last for just a few minutes but would leave me drained out to the bone…
Sometime last week, I had gone down to food court for my breakfast…had “aloo paratha”…I need to add here that I don’t test everything that is on the menu…quite conscious of my tummy, I always stick to a few things…so, invariably my breakfast would end up being either bread n egg or idly or aloo paratha…I had my breakfast, and when I was to get back the elevators were not functioning….waited for a while….and then decided to take the stairs….now, I have walked up the 11 floors before, but I think waling up immediately after a meal was a bad idea…didn’t realize it then!! By the time I reached the 11th floor, I was exhausted…was wondering if I had gotten a bit weaker…just a few minutes later, my entire breakfast came out…felt better after that…told myself that I would never take the stairs again….
Yesterday seemed to be quite a normal day….went for class…since the afternoon session was cancelled, managed to get back home in time for lunch…had a good meal of chicken biryani…the day was quite hot….the summer peak in Chennai is not something you can sit back and enjoy….was barely managing to get through when the chicken decided to get out….now, that resulted in diarrhea and vomiting….the only thing I fear…I fear? Yes, I fear because it leaves me weak….I fear coz I know it needn’t always hit me in the comfort of my home…I fear coz I can’t help but wonder if I would survive to face another day…I fear it most coz that is when I long for the comfort I would never get…
Back to normal today…hope I won’t have another spell for a long time to come…

This afternoon I was on my to office. It was going as usual, and we were traveling in the Maruti Omni to office. I was reading “Code to Zero” all the way. That is how I keep myself occupied throughout the journey that last just about an hour… It was almost the end of the journey as we were coming along the SP road. I looked up and a signpost caught my eyes. it was that of a skull and 2 bones, the typical danger signal. Though I have traveled that way everyday to work, I hadn’t noticed it. Even as I was wondering why it was there, I found the next post that said, “Accident prone zone” and I said to myself “probably this is the reason”. Not a second had passed after that thought crossed my mind, I found a mini-tempo fallen on the other side of the median. Just moments ago, there had been an accident, and even as we passed by, they were carrying the driver’s body to the pavement.

I was shocked and sat there trying to collect my thoughts. Only after we had gone quite a distance, I realized that I had been one of those passengers who had passed an accident site without doing anything.

Yes, there were people already helping him. Not sure if they could help him anymore or if he was no more. Still, it came as a sickening thought, that I dint have the presence of mind to do anything, whatsoever.

This has been the overriding thought for the rest of the day and I was praying for the presence of mind is such situations. I have found myself praying for that man and his family. I have found myself wondering about the man and his family, about how he would have left home this morning and how everyone around would have expected him home in the evening or late night.

We rarely wonder about these things, do we? When we set out, we assume that we would be home safe. But, will we?

I shall place my life in my Lord’s hands and have a peaceful sleep tonight. Let me take one day at a time.

By nature, I wasn’t a talkative person. As a child I had neighbors tell me that I should talk more if I wanted to survive…am sure I would be giving them a shock if they see me talking now…the reason, I am talking more than ever before. One main reason is that in my workplace, there is a great emphasis on communication. Add to that the fact that some people confuse plain talk and communication, we are encouraged to talk, in the name of “communication”. In fact, my first performance review here, had one remark in this aspect. It was that I should be more vocal in the team, and more vocal I am.

In spite of this, there are times when I can’t get myself talk to certain people. I don’t know what stops me. I am not able to find a reason. I am really clueless. But there are people with whom I find it highly impossible to hold a decent conversation.

There was this person here in one of our teams, and the job flow was such that I would have to interact with him (he was one among ~40 people in the teams I was working with). Since the day I joined, I wasn’t able to say a word to this person. Not even wish for courtesy sake…if we were working on a document, all that I would say would be perfect official talk regarding the document…as days went by, I got to realize that he wasn’t a good character, both on the job and out of it….he would talk crap and his work would not be of good quality. In spite of the kind of work he was doing, he would talk as if he was the best in town.

Almost a year later, I found another friend who said she had a similar feeling toward him. I was surprised. Till then, I had thought that it was some sort of a premonition that I had…something that forewarned me about his nature….but to find this in another person? We could only assure each other that we were not alone in this issue. Finally, he was laid off due to misconduct.

This is not the only incident. It is one among the many. There are a number of times, when I talk to someone and feel that person is not honest with me…in fact, nowadays if I feel the same way as I felt when I saw this fellow for the first time, I take it as a warning sign.

All the same, I have to admit that this doesn’t work all the time….

There are others who become my friends, these are people with whom I would feel comfortable…. There are some among this group of friends, a select few with whom I could talk about anything and everything. There is a friend who stands out in this respect. He mailed me once, I ignored the mail. Then he mailed again and I replied. Think we chatted just once and then we were talking on the phone and we were sharing so much of our lives uncensored… There is this particular day that would remain in my memory… That night we started talking and we stopped only when he fell asleep early in the morning…that was the amount we spoke and all along we were talking about everything we could think of…a wide range of topics…

Again, I have no idea why we spoke so much. We were strangers to each other just a few moments ago…and then here we are chatting away as if we had known each other for a lifetime…and in recent times there is this friend to whom I send a Long mail everyday and I receive an equally long one…

What makes me be so open with him? Well, what makes me talk? I have no idea