I want to know where I lost you

Coming soon ...

Dear TIME, give me the power to heal!

Dear Time,

I am earnestly requesting you to give me the power to heal from all the unforgettable memories I am carrying with me. When you give the power for others to forget everything, why not me? Isn't it time yet for me?

Awaiting eagerly,

Mr. Ben H

For the first time on my blog, I am writing the name of the person about whom this post is all about.

Dear Ben,

The very first day I had to meet you regarding work, you asked me to come and talk to you only if I had a charge number for the time I was gonna talk to you. I can still remember how hard it was for me to stop pouring tears. I complained about you to my manager. I complained about you to my friend. I felt very awful with the treatment you gave me! I thought how could anybody be so recklessly professional?! Do you need a charge number? Are you going to charge for 10 mins that I talk to you?

Later, when things got a little more clear you were nicer to me. Ah, I am amazed at your talent. No wonder you got a promotion that early. The knowledge you have is a wealth for the company. You have a spectacularly wonderful memory. You are a good software engineer and a good Systems Engineer.
I am not praising you because you helped me with my work. But I am praising because I really think that you are worth all this praise for the talent you have got. I also thought, "would there be anybody who can talk casually with this guy?"
Alas, I was so wrong Ben. I could see the causal side of you when ever we spoke about weather, california, student life ..... and about Mike E (;-))

You have a charming face when you smile, so please keep smiling :-)
Ben, I consider you to be a successful engineer. I would like to be an Engineer like you someday! :-D

Yours faithfully,

Your admirer :)

When I found "The Lost Symbol" :)

State Street House - Part II

I would like to talk about all the other royal creatures that lived in the house along with us three roommates. Yes, I should say this .... and it is not any bit of sarcasm or hype. You would conclude that by the end of this part. 

I should first talk about the policeman for our house who was never salaried. The BIG fur CAT!!!! He always sat in front of the house. Awaiting to enter the house. It probably loved my kiddo roommate a lot because, every time she wanted to go out, it always sat there to greet her. She would run inside the house seeing the cat. I was not any brave though :P I am dead scared of dogs and cats. There was once when my roommate and I were dropped off at home late in the night by a common friend. When we were about to enter the house, our prompt friend was greeting us with his meows. So we wanted to enter the house from the back entrance. He did not leave us. He was coming along with us where ever we went. If we walk slowly, he would walk slowly. If we ran he ran too ... :) And finally we had to call our friend back to chase the cat. In the night times, if we kept the door open with the mesh door closed, it would try to stand taking the support of the mesh door. The paws of the cat on the mesh door used to be scary .... and it's eyes were green and glowing to add to the horrification ....

Now coming to the second creature that lived around us. My kiddo roommate and I slept in the living room. Every night I used to hear some chirping sound. I used ask her ..." Do you think it is some rat?". She would say ... " I don't know ... Hope not". She was scared too ... but we could not figure out what that was until a month after we moved in. I came home in the evening once and my roommate told me " Hey we saw your rats ... it's not rat .. it's a bird or a bat I guess". 

WHAT??!! Bird or a BAT. She said .. "It is black and has big wings ... so .. " .... " Don't worry I shooed it from our house ... Hopefully you won't hear anymore sounds tonight". But, there was no change ... I could hear the same sounds again. I asked my roommate ... "What's going on? The bird is gone right? But we can still hear the sounds" .. The answer was "There are probably more". She was right .... There was an attic in the house where we put the luggage that we use very rarely. These birds probably lived there. I saw the second bird myself. It was resting itself on the couch. I tried to chase it out. It went all the way till the door and I was scared to open the mesh door and so it used to fly back in. After successfully failing like this for a few times, my cleaver roommate took the brave step once again to chase it. We sat there thinking ... we lived in this house with birds in it ... We hoped that we wont hear anymore sounds that night. And thankfully, there were no moe birds ... no more eerie sounds in the night. 

Here comes the last and final one. This really came to us like a final dhamaka. I used to keep some of my course papers and books beside my mattress every night before I went to sleep. Slowly I started seeing powdered papers beside my mattress. Day 1, day 2... day 3 ... it kept increasing .. and then I had to stop keeping my books and papers beside my mattress. Very soon we figured out there were mice in the kitchen!!!! The other knots unleashed themselves ... so the master minds behind my papers being powdered were the mice. The mice dropped one of my coffee mugs from a kitchen shelf and the handle of the mug broke :( This is just one story of the mess created by mice.

When I think about it now, .... I feel were we living in a zoo?!! Hey Ramm ..... Seriously we were blessed by god that we were not victims of any strange ailments.

Eerie dreams

I was trying to put myself to sleep last night around 2 am. While I was trying to sleep, I was woken up with a very strange dream. My roommate was sitting in front of me in her usual nightwear and in a very unimaginable hair style and shouting at someone. She kept yelling. I don't know at whom and why she was doing that. It was so dramatic, there was kind of focus of light on her and then all of a sudden the light vanished and my roommate was not to be seen and she stopped yelling as well :P. I was quickly woken up because I wasn't really deeply sleeping. I woke up and I was trying to find her. But she wasn't there and the very next moment I realized it was a dream.

Sometimes I wonder why do I dream of something so unconnected and silly. I don't know if it happens just with me or it happens with others too. When I was a kid, I always dreamt of one dream when I had high temperatures. There used to be a well .... very big one and I keep running around it and it has many snakes in it. Gosh! I can still remember that. Most of my dreams I dream of are always in the house I spent about 10 years of my childhood. If I try to remember that house when I am awake I can't really remember it but in my dreams, everything is so clear. It's probably the subconscious memory. 

State Street House - Part I

Today morning my previous roommate called me and spoke to me about the West State Street house. She told me that she was remembering an incident that happened in that house. I was telling her that I was also remembering the West State Street House last night. We were so amused that we both had similar thoughts :-)
After I wrote about all my nostalgia about Carriage Hill Drive ... I have to write about the place where I lived after Carriage Hill Drive. My two roommates and I decided not to obligate ourselves with a year long lease at Carriage Hill Drive ... We moved to a house in the West State Street. Knowing little about the experiences we were going to go through, we moved in with all the feeling of newness and change. The day we moved in, we even boiled milk as per our Indian tradition :-)
When I think about that house now, I feel how can anyone live in a house that had so many problems. Everyday we wold have some peculiar unexpected problem at home. The problems we went through were so so strange, I will describe one such event in this post.
One evening when I came home after hanging out with my friends, I had dinner and opned the tap to wash my hands and I found that the flow of water was slowing down and I felt that it will stop shortly. When I looked out of the window, the landlord was going out somewhere. I quickly called him and told about the problem. He stopped by and it was almost 12 in the night when he figured out that the hot water supply pipe had cracked and it was continuously flowing out. He told us that he will stop the water supply for the night and get someone to mend it by morning. We did not want to think too much about next morning before we slept because it would just be unnecessary strain as we knew that its anyway going to be an awful experience. One roommate of mine had to leave by 8 in the morning the next day so she managed a face wash and left the house early.

Now it was  time for me and my kiddo roomie to leave home. There was not even a drop of water supply at home. We being people who often think silly and creative ;-) ... we remembered that there was a university building right opposite to our house. She told me ... "Thank god our house is so close to the campus that we have some univ building right opposite to our house". With the sleepy faces, we quickly changed into jeans and presentable tee-shirts. We armed ourselves with toothpaste, toothbrushes, tongue cleaners and face wash. We looked at each as if we questioned each other, " do we need anything else?"

We walked to the building with our flip flops and we saw a young girl in the reception. She was in a bright orange top and greeted us with a pleasant smile and said " Good morning!! .... How are you guys doing?" My roomie replied with a gorgeous and childish smile .."Good morningggg!!" 

We were not feeling comfortable with the feeling of entering this building just because there was no water at our house. We slipped from there as if we were just too busy with something and ran inside the restroom so that the receptionist does not see out tooth brushes, tooth paste etc etc ... . The restroom was soo very well maintained. With all flower vases and neatly maintained wash basins etc ... We were pleasantly surprised with the look of the place.

There were nobody around, so we both started talking and cracking some silly pjs and giggling. We were talking pretty loudly ... and then suddenly we saw a lady walk out of one of the restrooms. Me and my roommate froze after seeing her. She had such a surprised look on her face which almost asked the question ... " Are these girls from any jungle? Why are they brushing their teeth here? Are they homeless?" We both put a sudden stop to the conversation and we were looking at each other in the mirror with the toothbrush in mouth, all so embarrassed to be there. We never wanted to be seen by anyone for all the silly plans we had made to get to college with a decent look. The lady did not talk a word, we did not talk a word. She almost ran out of the restroom as if we were some unsafe people to be among :-P

My roommate and I burst into laughter after she left :-) 

This was just one funny incident that happened in that house. Everyday we had to await one new problem and think about solving it. More to come in the next part ...