The security guard replied “He is a senior guy sir. He sits near the CEO”.

His supervisor immediately snapped back, “No, he comes by two wheeler. He must only be a junior guy”.

I loved their definition of a senior manager. )

At my alma mater (The Hindu Senior Secondary School, Triplicane, Chennai), the convention is to let the Class XII students run the school for the whole day. The day before, the students will elect among themselves for the key roles – Principal, Vice Principal etc. Needless to say, it will be super cool to be elected as a Principal / VP. Sitting on the swivel chair and issuing commands on and off the microphone would certainly be giving one a sense of power. There will be a clamour to be allocated to ‘teach’ for the higher classes. Ours being a co-ed school, one doesn’t need to tell the reason for the above. Over all, whether the students appreciate the role of teachers on this day or not, it will be good fun for everyone involved.

It has been close to two decades since I left school. I only hope that this tradition still continues.

My interest was in working at the Press area in some capacity so that I could get to know the background function of real time journalism. Although the above was my preference, I was fine to contribute to the Games in any capacity and I had indicated that as such. I was prepared to take 2 weeks off from work for this. Sometime last year, I got an email asking me to attend the interview for a volunteering position at the Press Box. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was several thousand miles away from the venue at that time.

Just because of the fact that I wasn’t able to volunteer my time for Olympics, it does not mean that I regret my move to India. There is absolutely no regret on that count. Looking at it the other way, with our new born just about two weeks old – had I got an opportunity to volunteer at one of the Olympic venues, it would have been a next to impossible job to go there with full zeal. Perhaps, this is what people mean when they say ‘If God denies you something, it means that he has got better plans for you!’.

During Anirud’s birth in 2005 – I was in UK in a laid back mode. I was getting daily updates from my wifey on what was going on, but it is a completely different ball game when you experience things in person. Having said that, there are lots of small, little things that I missed at that time and I am making up for the lost opportunity then. Some one I know used to say, “It is interesting to watch children grow”. Yeah, that is so very true.

When the nurse placed the baby on Anirud’s hands, his face radiated the glow of few thousand watts. Not sure if he had this rehearsed earlier, he said “Hello Baby! Welcome to the new world!!”.

Talking about food joints, in the last one year – at the neighbourhood adjoining the place I live in, I see that the number of Dosa shops have spring up like anything. While some of them serve the traditional menu, quite a few of them are experimental (like Mysore Schezwan Masala Dosa for instance) and they taste yum! All of them are stand-in eateries and I should say that most of them are neat and clean. No wonder there is a good patronage for these businesses. For foodies like me, more the number of options, the better it is. This is one particular thing I love about India – the ability to taste food of any kind, almost any where.

By the way, would any kind soul enlighten me as what ‘Nammura Halli Mane’ means?

Unlike the other competition venues, this one (a school in Kanakapura Road) has opened up their auditorium for parents to sit back and they have also arranged a catering vendor who sell tea and snacks. Using this time to catch up on reading. Currently reading, ‘The White Tiger’ by Aravind Adiga. Interesting read so far.

When you have nothing else to do for few hours and are stuck in the same place for few hours, observing people becomes interesting. Don’t know how, the womenfolk quickly form a big circle in no time and one could see them exchange their mobile numbers, recipes, details of tailors and what not. Fathers of seven-year olds are perhaps socially challenged. Most of them including yours truly, chose to bury their heads in their Blackberrys / iPads, while some had a book in their hands for company. Even when they were in conversation, it was more of an one-to-one, as opposed to many-to-many in the other gender.

A crowd of around 500 folks has many weirdos. Like for instance, a parent who took his son away from the competition after reaching the venue, as he ‘thought’ it would take only one hour as against the five hours, which he is not prepared to spend. Looking at that child’s face, I felt like thrashing that moron. There was another idiot who chided the organizers for arranging the competition at this venue, which is very far from ‘his’ home.

Anyhow, it was an interesting way to kill time without doing much. Hope Anirud participates in many more competitions like this that gives me quality time.

I stayed at home most of the time, slept during the day which is a luxury for me, did mundane things like organizing the playlist in my iPod (which I had been procrastinating for years), watching football, playing with Anirud etc. I even wrote few posts in my now defunct blog. During this time, I purposefully remained incommunicado from work by keeping my Blackberry on mute, although I was aware of the fireworks that were going on in the office – that needed my attention.

Today as I got ready to commute to work, I realized that the last two days were my best days in the recent memory. I was able to switch off all my work related concerns, be able to relax, do stuff that I liked, not be concerned about having to negotiate something for someone. Simply put, it feels great – even when I haven’t recovered completely and even when I am staring at the mountain load of stuff waiting to be done. It took this long for me to realize that one doesn’t need to go on a holiday to relax. What is more, we even quietly started our tenth year of married life yesterday. Isn’t that blissful?