Of Home, Audits, Train Rides And All That Jazz

I've just come back from my first out station audit.

It was my first trip alone in years.

I wasn't looking forward to it a lot but it eventually turned out to be a lot of fun. I suddenly realised how use to I am to staying in Delhi. I crib about the traffic but deserted roads in Panchkula made me uncomfortable.I complain about the millions of people and zero breathing space but an almost empty mall on a Saturday evening made me feel like I had landed on Mars.

I love Delhi.

But I never really knew that. I've always wanted to move out. I've made extravagant plans of moving to DC or owning a farm in Vienna. I'd never even considered that leaving would ever be an issue.

I also didn't love the whole being alone bit as much as I thought I would. Mornings just dragged on forever. I must have called home some three times even before breakfast. The silence at night wasn't soothing and that stupid coir mattress didn't help either.

I discovered family and the fun of hanging out with cousins. I've never felt so loved by relatives in a really long time. Those late night gossip sessions still have me in splits. I hope we get to meet more often !

To top it all the work wasn't that bad either. Tons of new stuff that I will hopefully remember.

It was a great week and I'm glad to be back home !!

Of Blue Elephants and Disappearing Parks

I see those statues everyday. Wrapped in blue plastic waiting to be unveiled. It makes me sick every single day. Mayawati and her army of blue elephants trampling over every park in sight.Endless articles have and will be written on the money and environment. But she's also managed to single handedly destroy much more than that.

I remember driving by those walls a couple of months back. Kari and I thought it was to border the parks. Little did we know that Mayawati was just trying to keep all the demolition out of sight. I remember how Papa came home all distressed one day. He had managed to get a glance behind those massive stone walls. He couldn't stop talking about how everything had been razed to the ground. He could see the swirls of mud spilling onto the road from his office.

I don't remember the last time I went to Nandan Kanan but I have a lot of happy memories there. The endless orange bars I've had there, the school picnics, sleeping in the winter sun and taking a drive just to see the fountains light up the night.

Its all gone now.

And even though there's a stay and the court might intervene, what was is now all gone.

If I could, I'd love to go throw a shoe at those stupid statues.

21 it is!

I wanted to mark the day on my blog.

And even though I'm three days late, I still wanted to write this post.

I'm not one of those people who start counting down days a month before their birthday or get really super duper excited.

But this one I was really looking forward to. 21 has a great ring to it and I get to use it for one entire year. I'd planned to do tons of things, some plans worked out and others didn't. I didn't get the dress or the haircut. But I had great two days and I'm trying to stretch and spill the happiness over to this.

So even though Henna might say I'm already half way to 42, I'm really kicked to be 21!!

Of Tax Reports, Five Audits and Six Whole Months

Its been six months.

Six whole months.

I didn't thing I'd survive this long. Half a year seems like a really long time!

I don't think I've made many friends but that's not really something I was looking for any way.


I'd promised myself that I'd give the work my best shot. I figured maybe, just maybe I might like something. Six months and a tax deadline later, I know at least one thing for sure. Tax is way cooler than any audit.I like looking up stuff on my own or figuring what the act really wants to say. There's a certainty to tax that in some weird kind of way is vaguely comforting. I hate asking people around and new audits scare me slightly.I don't know what to do, who to ask, where to go.

Mumma used to constantly tell me that she can't imagine me spending all my days buried in files in front of a computer.But honestly, I don't mind it one bit. I like having my own desk and my own laptop.I like labelling files and sorting out papers.

But it also worries me that I might get too comfortable. And then not have enough guts to get out when I really want to.

Hopefully, by the end of the next 6 months I'll know exactly where I want to be.