Goa is not just about the beaches!!!

What I learnt from my trip to Goa was that, it is not just about the beaches. Definitely not!!
There is so much more!!

Greenery: The best part of the places that I visited was the greenery. It was so nice to see so much greenery for my parched eyes. Every house has plants. That is a must, I observed.

Amazing Roads: The roads were hardly bumpy. How it was maintained so well, is beyond my understanding for such a heavy floating population. Beautiful roads was another plus point that I saw in Goa.

Entrepreneurship at its best: It may be a bar but nevertheless, every second house had some shop or some business operating right from their own homes. It was nice to see this culture where people are trying to earn their bread with hard work.

Blend of culture: If I were to picture Goa in my mind before the trip, it would have been only the beaches. But what I saw was different. There were so many temples there. And the rich culture that came oozing out of these temples was mind blowing.

People were pious in temples. Young men aged between 25 and 30 were in dhoti, doing poojas. And there were such men in every temple that I visited. 

And then the churches, how could I not visit them!! I got to see a service and also a wedding!! How lucky am I :). The service, the choir, and all were so soothing to experience. 

By the way, I loved the frocks that the women were wearing. I saw the women wearing them with no age bar :P. I wish, I could have them too :).

Goa trip in a nutshell...

We reached Ponda city, Goa on Saturday morning at around 8:30 a.m. We had brought rains along with us :). It was raining at the time we started from Hyderabad and was raining throughout.
I thought to myself, would I be even able to see and visit any places in this rain!! But God was kind on me, and it stopped raining after some time.

We went to Nageshi temple in Ponda, where the ceremony, that we had actually come to attend, was going on. We were given our room where we freshened up and came down for the thread ceremony.

The customs and traditions were new and different for me. As in our case, the Konkani people also have thread ceremony for young boys. Both the parents of the young boy were dressed up for the occasion. The boy was also dressed up for the occasion. He had flower garlands over his head, around his arms. He was covered with a shining red colored shawl. He was brought to the ceremony carried by his maternal uncles :).

Rest of the ceremony looked more or less the same as in our case.
The temple where the ceremony took place.

The best part about most of the temples that I visited in Goa was the huge area on which it was built. Also every temple has a koneru, the small water body, and pretty much well maintained. 

Every temple had a big hall where people could conduct functions and rooms were also available for stay. There is a small canteen in all temples that people visit for meals when catering is not provided.

So convenient for people to conduct ceremonies. And it costs less also :P.

Our entire stay was in this temple only. A nice and comfortable room was given to us with a beautiful view from the window.

Everything was green, pleasant to my eyes that was tired of looking at the monitor screen!!

In the afternoon, after the lunch we went to Candolim beach in Goa. It was sparsely populated that gave us some place to have some fun. 

In the evening, we went on the cruise, which was okay. After that we came back to our rooms and retired for the day!!!

Goa calling...

My husband planned a very sudden trip to Goa. He asked me, in this condition, if I could go ahead. But Goa , it was...so how could I even say No to it...I shrieked and jumped at the idea. And Yes it was..The trip started on Friday evening and lasted till Monday late afternoon. And what a trip it was...so refreshing!!!

OK God, I know you hear me!!!

My son, as I mentioned in my earlier post, has been asking for a small baby since couple of months. He has started to feel the loneliness of being the single child.

I have also been attending quite a few baby showers and cradle ceremonies. Even if that was not enough, everywhere I go, I run into infants and their mothers. 

Somewhere inside me, I feel to re-live those times when I held my son for the first time. The times, when everyone came to see him and play with him. The times, when after applying oil on his body, I used to talk to him and read some holy mantras.

Though I never said it aloud, it was definitely in me. And there it goes. God understood that this is what I wanted, and he gave me thus.

My son will soon have a brother or a sister to play with. And I, another baby to fondle!!

Thank You God for you heard what everyone wanted, especially my son and gave it to us!!!

What next....

My son, last weekend, came to us and said that he had no friends to play with. All the kids near our flat are older than him and usually don't involve him in their games. So he is usually left all alone to play or has to plead with them to play with him. That too, they don't stay for long. Hence, it all zeroes down to one point...he needs a companion.

Thus starts the usual stuff from in-laws, to plan for another kid so that the current one has someone to call his own. But my husband and I are so busy and involved with other household things that we end up not having time for issues like these. Even after telling him what my son said, he had nothing to say. So I wasn't sure what he was actually thinking.

If I were to say something on this, frankly, I do not want to undergo the delivery pain again. Though I had a cesarean  I don't want to undergo the post delivery pain, which is a lot than what women undergo during normal delivery. Guess somewhere down the lane, I am shit scared of the pain. On top of it, the weight!!!
Poof, I have not yet lost the weight I put on when I was carrying my son. Another kid would mean additional   weight which I don't know how long it would take for me to reduce.

So is the maternal instinct inside me dead?? No, of course not!!! Even today when I see an infant, I remember the tiny hands that I held when my son was put in my hands for the first time. The smile he gave me when I use to massage him, those are the things that really made me feel alive.

But now what then! I always wanted to adopt. Give life to someone in need and fulfill my dream of a complete family. I strongly believe that there are so many kids who are in need of a good family and if we are able to extend our support to even a single child, then we have done our part towards the society.

Kids are kids anyway, they would be innocent. I have the gut feeling that I would never show the difference in the love that I would shower on the adopted one, in case I do that.

Now the big question is, will the people around me approve!!! I don't know as I belong to a conservative family where if you don't have kids, you would ask families (known to you) who have kids, to give one of theirs! Adoption would never even cross their minds. In such a family, if I raise this thought, I am skeptical, how it would be received. But.....

Ahh..God help me :)

New terms learnt today

Apache Hadoop: Hadoop is a software framework that allows running of large volume of data-involved  applications. It is based on MapReduce and GoogleFileSystem (GFS). It has replication of data in various nodes so that failures are well managed. Hadoop enables splitting of tasks into smaller chunks. Also any node can pick these small tasks as data is available across all nodes.

MapReduce:  This was written by Google. The concept is that large data and its related activities are mapped to various nodes. Once all the nodes have finished executing the tasks, the results are reduced to deduce the desired output. 

I could not understand the concept of GFS completely. Hence deferring my understanding on the same.

Google Cloud site: https://cloud.google.com/ You can use Google's cloud infrastructure to build applications, deploy them, store and analyze data.

Microsoft's Cloud site: By the way, it is called Azure. http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/?fb=en-us You could try it for free and then pay as you use more.

So after all this, Oracle would not have stayed behind. This is what they offer:

http://www.oracle.com/us/solutions/cloud/overview/index.html 

Some new geeky stuff

Ok, so I am finally getting some opportunity to check out the latest in the technology, of course, these things might have been released ages ago. But I got to hear about them and learn about them only recently. So here they go...

Elastic Search: It is a search engine that has been built over Apache Lucene. This search makes the whole searching easier by using JSON over HTTP. It is distributed and replicated. Also indexing is done that makes search easier. Next, there is no schema attached. So whatever you seek for using the JSON request and in that format is returned. 

Apache Lucene: An open-source searching library. It was originally written in Java. It searches in documents containing texts. File formats are not considered.  Twitter uses Lucene for searches.

OK, I might be drifting from what I have defined already. But since there are too many terms, I am just noting them down as and when I get to hear about them.

CAP theorem: CAP in CAP theorem means Consistency, Availability and Partition Tolerance. It is also called Brewer's theorem. It says for distributed applications/systems, it is possible to achieve any 2 of the three mentioned at any given time.

That's all I learnt today. Will update once I get to know more stuff!!!

Purane geet

Aaj pata nahi kya hua, subah se sirf purane gaane hi sunai de rahe hain. subah office mein bhi saare hemant kumar ke pyaare gaano ka mazaa uthaya. Ab cab mein mukesh ki bahaaron ka anand le rahi hoon. Kuch bhi kaho, old is definitely gold.

Why I love YaadonKaIdiotBox?

Thanks to Sravanthi but it has got me hooked to this amazing program called YaadonKaIdiotBox. 

One of the first things that I have enjoyed in the show is Hindi. After a long time, I am getting to listen to hindi, I mean proper Hindi program and that too on radio!!!
Well that's definitely another big reason why I love this show. I get to listen to the program as well as work. 

The voice of the radio jockey, Neelesh Misra is absolutely honey. The sweetness with which he explains the emotions in the story is absolutely mind blowing. It only makes you want to listen to more stories.

The way he describes the things as well, the sounds that are created in the background, keeping the events in the story in mind, that is simply amazing.

And yes, definitely topping the list would be the story! I get to hear some amazing stories from one of the most beautiful place on this earth, Yaad Sheher. I know it doesn't exist :P, but so what the place is great and so are the stories. 

It has rekindled the emotions that were almost forgotten in the busy life that I have been leading.
Thanks Neelesh and thank You Yaad Sheher :).

p.s. I so loved the stories that I bought the first 2 volumes of the book and am definitely going to buy the future volumes as well.

Who am I?

Yesterday when I went to the doctor, his diagnosis was that I was under some mental stress. I laughed it off, saying that is obvious once the girl is married. Amma was her sentimental stuff, to the outside world, she seems happy and jovial, but I know she is thinking about too many things deep down.

Today morning at the breakfast table also, Dad was telling me that my son doesn't talk to people if any one approaches him. He only talks to people he knows. Somewhere he has got my habits and to some extent, my dad. And my dad continued into the nostalgia that I never used to speak to people other than the children in my neighborhood. My husband is just not like that. He speaks to everyone.

That got me thinking, who am I?
My dad was talking about me being reserved during my childhood. Only in my high school did I speak to a lot of people, I do mean a lot. Then again now, I do not talk to a lot of people at work. Its only professional discussion that I usually indulge in. Otherwise, I prefer staying in my own shell, doing my own "lot of" stuff.

But at the same time, I have couple of great friends, who have been there in thick times as well. It has so happened that I do not end up sharing every minutest detail, not sure whether they share theirs or not. 

In my previous company, I made some amazing friends before and after marriage. Of course, I did lose touch with some as well. But the ones I am still in touch with, they are real good with me.

OK, to cut the long story short, I was thinking, what exactly was my personality type!!
Am I an introvert since I like to stay within myself, or am I a gregarious person who loves to be with people!!
At home, I am not sure if I mingle with everyone. Definitely never at all times!!!
I don't know, its all so confusing!!!

Hyderabad awakened !!!

I have been living at my parent's place ever since my mother-in-law went out of station. Among the many great things of staying at mother's place after marriage :), travelling to work and back seems like a small pinch. But, someone should be there to take care of my son, and so the destination changes.

Anyways, today when I was travelling to work by my favorite 127 K/V bus, one of the first things I noticed was the khakhi everywhere. Every road the bus went by, I could see khakhi-colored uniform clad men. With and without their guns and lathis, the looks on their faces did seem that they are there and alert.

I observed them on some of the main junctions like Koti and Abids. But after that, unknowingly, I started noticing them on every road. It was nice to seem these men on the roads, vigilant and spirited.

Finally, I felt the people and government has awakened, realizing their duties and doing it. Or was it me???