My friendly neighborhood bank

I've always been bad with my finances. For that reason alone, I find my bank(BOA) a blessing! Since the time I landed in the US, all I did was open an account with a bare basic minimum balance and voila! I've deposited every pay check since then and they have, without a grudge or charge, taken care of everything else for me. If there was a customer satisfaction survey forum, I'd gladly post this over there. I've take my bank for granted!!

The other day, I made an ATM transaction to deposit a check and for days after that, I never saw the amount in my account. So frantically I called them to figure out what had happened, given I had no receipt for the transaction(I threw that out, of course-who needs receipts! bah!) AND I couldnt remember what the amount on the check was. Bingo!! Not only could they trace the transaction on my charge card, she was able to tell me what exactly I had done wrong AND fixed it for me. Bless her(their) heart!!!

I mean, its amazing. How can a financial organization be so efficient! E-commerce is really, truly a modern day marvel! Can you imagine, 20-30 yrs ago, one would have had to stand in a line for many hours and many visits to the bank to have tracked this very same transaction. I've never had to go in to the bank except when I've had to order travellers checks at short notice. I mean, you can do that online as well, only it takes time for them to mail the checks over. No wonder I dont get smarter with my finances!!!! The banks just get smarter doing it for us.

I can do most of my transactions online and on the rare instances that I have had to call, I always been able to find someone helpful and knowledgeable to get it done right away!

I cant stop raving. But if someone does know of a forum to post such feedback, please, please do let me know!

Time stands still..

Anu boarded the KSRTC bus making its way to Hospet. It seemed like aeons since she had boarded a KSRTC bus. She hadnt been on a Greyhound, let alone KSRTC in many years. Of course, the comparison was obvious. She felt a tinge of guilt at the amount of years she had been away from her home country and town for that matter. As soon as she got in, her nostrils sensed a strong smell of dried-up urine. Some child must have peed and she felt the crush of peanut shells under her sandals. She made her way to the last vacant seat next to two others. The bus was full and she heaved a sigh of relief for having found one vacant seat. Not having recovered from jetlag and with her sinuses acting up, Anu had been sleeping fitfully for a week now.

She had decided at the last minute to go to Hospet. After all, she hadnt visited chikkamma in a long time. Hospet was always her favorite hangout as a child. The mango tree in chikamma's backyard was a treasure trove. She and her cousins had spent many fun-filled holidays just enjoying the shade of the tree and its fruits. Hospet was all about picnics to Hampi and the Tungabhadra dam. aaah! she reminisced. Those carefree childhood days. All about eating, playing, an occassional smattering of school and holidays and festivals. It all seemed so far away. Now, life was literally one big calendar . It was about deadlines, committments, personal duties, responsibilities- a mind game.

Anu was jolted out of her reverie by a push in her side. A huge lady with a basket filled with vegetables had boarded and decided she would make a 3-seater into a 4-seater at Anu's expense. "Swalpa adjust maadko" she commanded as she sat pushed Anu's thighs to make space for herself. Anu sighed and gave in. Its only a matter of some hours she reasoned with herself. As she struggled to revert to her reverie, the bus chortled into action. As it made its way through the bustling city(downtown?) streets, Anu took in the sheer magnitude of the sights. Street vendors, pedestrians, traffic, animals, shops-teaming with people and activity. She could hear snippets of random conversations.

As the bus stopped , picked up more passengers and moved on, Anu felt suffocated. The air smelt stale and she felt the beginnings of a headache. Just to distract herself, she closes her eyes in a final effort to sleep. Something catches the corner of her eye. She sees a man's hand making its way slowly around the waist of a girl who had decided to lean against the rail next to the seat in front of her. She takes a quick second to glance at the man. He was in his early 30s, clad in a nylon T-shirt with a glaring Superman sign on it and jeans. Reverting back, she sees the hand now planted firmly around the waist and the girl, with obvious discomfort, squirming to get away. She watches this episode for a few minutes till the girl, in a wave of boldness, pinches the arm. The man quickly withdraws to recover posture and makes a valiant effort to seem unaffected. The girl moves over to the next pole to lean against.

Thats when it strikes Anu. Thats it!! Nothings changed. While that feels good, sometimes its depressing. Isnt this the 21st century? Shouldnt a few things have changed? Eve-teasing has been around forever. Now its an accepted vice? You deal with it and move on? There's no solution for it go away for good? Is this worse than chicken-pox? Heck! Humanity has a cure for that!! Cant we find a solution for something like this? Agitated at this train of thoughts, she pulls the book and bottle of water out of her backpack. After a few gulps of cool water , wetting her tired eyes and some shifting, she tries to settle down to reading the book for the rest of the journey. She feels the vegetable lady leaning against her dozing. The other two passengers were a mother and daughter pair talking animatedly about an "annoying relation" in their family. The rest of the journey went uneventfully and the next thing she heard was "Hospet" being announced by a loud voice in the front of the bus. While people drained off the bus, and the vegetable lady extricated herself out of the seat, Anu felt exhausted.

As she jumped off the bus, she literally fell into the warm arms of chikkamma. "Anu" screamed chikkamma as she almost strangled her in a tight and very familiar hug. With a big grin and a return hug, Anu thought, THIS is homecoming..........................

..........some things will never change!

"The Zahir" review

This is my third book by Paulo Coelho. My first two were "The Alchemist" and "Eleven Minutes"

His writing is fluid, every line adds a new meaning to the way we depict life. The more you read, the more you begin to think that the book was just written for you and about you. His latest novel "The Zahir" is an amazing read about a writer whose wife has walked out on him in search of life's meaning. As the story unfolds, the writer becomes obsessed with understanding the reason of her desertion. His search for her and for the truth of his own life is what the entire book is about. The tale is set in Paris though the writer's quest takes him through the enchanting landscape of Central Asia.

The meaning of Zahir, in this book, is an object of obsession. This obsession causes the affected person to see less of reality and obsess about the object itself. In this case, it is his wife, Esther. There are only two states with Paulo Coelho's books : You either love them or you dont. There is no third state.

Below are some quotable quotes and excerpts.

I start with this excerpt :
---" I have everything a woman could want." "What's wrong with your life then?" "Precisely that. I have everything, but I am not happy. And I'm not the only one either; over the years I've met and interviewed all kinds of people: the rich, the poor, the powerful and those who just make do. I've seen the same infinite bitterness in everyone's eyes, a sadness which people werent always prepared to acknowledge but which, regardlesss of what they were telling me, was nevertheless there. Some people appear to be happy, but they simply dont give the matter much thought, Others make plans: I'm going to have a husband, a home, two children, a house in the country. As long as they're busy doing that, they're like bulls looking for the bullfighter: they react instinctively, they blunder on, with no idea where the target is They get their car, sometimes even a Ferrari, and they think that's the meaning of life, and they never question it. Yet their eyes betray the sadness that even they dont know they carry in their soul. I dont know if everyone is unhappy. I know they're all busy: working overtime, worrying about their children, their husband, their career, their degree, what they're going to do tomorrow, what they need to buy, what they need to have in order not to feel inferior, etc.
When asked if they are happy, their answer is "I've got everything a person could possibly want, a family, a home, work, good health". Even if I meet someone who was doing what he had chosen to do, that person's soul was still in torment, he hadnt found peace yet either."

Another excerpt :
--- I'm free, independent.
But what is freedom? I heard other people speaking in the name of freedom, and the more they defended this unique right, the more enslaved they seemed to their parents' wishes, to a marriage in which they had promised to stay with the other person 'for the rest of their lives', to their bathroom scales, to their diet, to their half-finished projects, to weekends they were obliged to have lunch with people they didnt even like, Slaves to luxury, to the appearance of luxury, to the appearance of the appearance of luxury. Slaves to a life they had not chosen, but which they had decided to live because someone had managed to convince them that it was all for the best."

Yet another :
"Suffering occurs when we want other people to love us in the way we imagine we want to be loved, and not in the way that love should manifest itself-free and untrammelled, guiding us with its force and driving us on"