London has become a bad place for us Asians to live. Having an asian face directly results in people giving u scared and strange looks which is highly irritating, but I guess just like all other changes in life one tends to accept and live with it.

The other day while I was travelling in the tube, it was overcrowded. I got a place to sit and the there were 2 seats next to me which were vacant.Maybe if I wd not have taken the seat people wd hv occupied them, but since I took one of the seats no-one wanted to sit next to me....especially since I was carrying a rucksack.....It was funny when u think of it in hindsight....in eeh middle of a crowded train an asian man sitting all alone on a seat which was meant for 3 people.Anyways, I made use of the empty seats by keeping my rucksack on it which ofcourse got me a number of stares from nearby passengers......

Guess will just get used to it in a couple of days......

Another weekend gone and so starts my wait for the next one.......

On Sunday the weather played truant.....so decided to cancel Mandarin and Yoga and instead watch a movie.....after a lot of thought finally settled down with Alfred Hitchcock's ''Birds''. I remember reading the story a couple of years back and it had scared me and I must say this movie did live up to my expectations. A movie made so long back, but you hardly feel that its such an old film. The trick photography is cool and the birds really give you an ominous feeling with the thought that with all the environmental damage we humans are doing, something like this cd really happen and if nature does turn against mankind.......will there be any hope for mankind inspite of the fact that mankind is considered as one of the most intelligent of species.I like the end particularly as there is no justification given for the bird attack phenomena which leaves one with the thought far after the movie is over.

Another blast......more terror and mayhem......more problems for us innocent Asians who have come to this city to earn an honest living. For the first time today I had guys coming an dtelling me that they were ok to go back offshore.Currently the fear quotient is really high.....and the funny thing is that its the asians who are more worried....and thats not abt being killed by blasts but facing the ostracism from society just because the common white person cannot distinguish between an Indian and a Pakistani.....

Today, I guess the Indian s/w engineer will be more than happy to go back to India.A city like London which has never faced this kind of a situation before, is suddenly sieged with 8 bomb blasts in aperiod of 4 weeks.

Its so amazing woking in a multi-cultural city and company. Was talking over the phone to Divya and was talking in Mallu and there were 4 others talking on the phone at the same time.....one in Nigerian, one in German, one in Russian and the 4th in Italian.......and the funny thing is that it all sounded natural.....:-)))....ofcourse for an outsider this wd be only a cacophony of sounds, since none of teh languages sound remotely familiar...even the phonetics of each langauge are different....Italian sounds so emotional....even the most normal conversation sounds highly dramatic...while German sounds so staid......

Its nice working in a city like London which in my opinion is a cauldron of different cultures.....

Divya feels our baby kicking......its so awful that I am missing on all this....but no use in thinking abt it...makes me all the more depressed.She says baby starts kicking when she is talking to me....so that means baby understands that momma is talking to dada...:-))).....

its such a marvel of nature.....a human being being brought in to the world.....I really want to know what it must feel like to have a life in your stomach...but I guess that privilege is only for a woman to have.....lucky women.....

The feeling of the thought of getting a baby in to the world is indescribable.....the joys of parenthood is unbelievable......the thought of the tiny thing gets a smile to my face.....

All of a sudden Priti sent a mail......it was nice to get a mail from her...brought back old memories of CIT (Priti was my project manager in CIT) and I guess those days when we were one gang of Myself, Priti, Kanchan, Pallu, Rachna, Vimal and Ashwin were real fun. Infact I guess those days were the most funfilled days in KPIT (then CIT). Now ofcourse everyone has split and gone their own ways....so we just hv memories left.

why is it that we always look back on the old days and feel that they were always better than our present days.....(when in reality in those days there was no end to our cribbing). I guess cribbing is apart and parcel of life....:-))

Its become so difficult for me to make a polite conversation just for the sake of making a conversation. I just cannot seem to be bothered to do it. I guess this must be my latent antisocial nature trying to break through the polite demeanour that I generally reserve for acquaintances.

Initially I used to atleast try to be friendly with people whom I dont't instantly like. But now I feel pretences take up too much energy, so I choose the simpler route....Just ignore the person....Yeah I guess at times its rude, but then making polite conversations is worse.

I do not like judging people without knowing them, but more and more I am going by first impressions. If the person doesn't give positive vibes.....well....thats the last time I socialise with him/her.Yeah...postivity has become so important for me....I guess it began after spending 6 months working in a predominantly negative environment. Now its become so easy to ''feel'' the postive energy flowing from a person the first time I meet him/her and I guess I am 90% correct in my judgement.

So I guess that how its gonna be.....no wasting time and energy on people who ain't worth the effort.

Looks like its been proven that the people behind the attacks on London were British born pakistanis. Well....how surprising is that news.

Its so pathetic, that a small minority among the asian community can bring such a stigma to the entire South East Asian community. All of us Asians are frowned upon and looked at suspiciously after these attacks. While getting in to the tube, people give you strange stares ...which is obvious, cos' they cannot distinguish between an Indian or a Pakistani. It is highly irritating, cos' its like combining all Chinese, Japanese and Koreans in to one community.

The other day an asian guy got in to the tube and while it was in motion, he put his hand in to his rucksack and you should hv seen the looks of terror in the eyes of the passengers. Another movement from the poor guy and someone wd hv pulled the emergency alert.

Its actually funny when you view it in a different way......one single guy had the entire carriage staring at him and the terror that he cd ignite in his fellow passengers is actually funny in a sadistic manner.

London back to normal.....must be a blow to the terrorists who targetted London. I am sure they expected to do more damage. But, I guess life just has to move on. Our existence has become so machinised that we cannot stop living just because we are fearful.

Nuthing much happened over the weekend. Saturday was meant for lazing and thats exactly what I did. Sunday had my Chinese class with Helen. I am sure Helen was surprised that I had done so much of reading over the last few weeks. She tells me yesterday that I do hv a natural gift for picking up languages and that I am picking things up real fast. So that gives me motivation to do all the more.

After that went to the Iyengar institute for my yoga session. Boy, it was good. 90 mins of yoga surely drained me......but at the same time was brilliant. So now you know where you can locate me every Sunday. Due to this schedule, Sunday just passes off, but then its fun to be busy doing interesting things.

London is returning back to normal. I am always surprised at the tenacity of human beings in situations like this.Inspite of the horrible blasts yesterday, people still started using the undergrounds and the buses as soon as they became operational.

This kind of an unexpected tragedy makes me think again about the frailty of human lives. You are alive one day.....board the bus to go to work.....and boom....a bomb blast and u are dead.

How many of us forget to live our lives when we have it and postphone ''living'' for another day. Everyday we have excuses of work, stress etc. to avoid enjoying the simple pleasures of life. These tragedies make my resolve stronger to savour each moment like there will not be another moment.Ofcourse its a tall order, but atleast am trying to do everything that I hv always wanted to do. Never know whether tomorrow will ever come.

Blasts in London......what a timing...just when all Londoners (shdn't say all....but a lot) are celebrating winning the Olympic bid, this happens.

Its at timeslike this that u realise that whatever the security, when a thing like this happens, its all chaos and thats exactly how it is here today. All bus and train services suspended....I fail to understand how the guys will be going back home today. Heard that some offices are making arrangements for ppl to stayback in the office tonight. Hopefully things get better soon.

It does seem very well coordinated but asof now no-one has come forward taking responsibility for the blasts.Can only be some losers who think of killing innocent people to prove a point ...not that they ever prove anything.

Am reading a book Extraordinary Minds.....pretty interesting. Talks abt the profiles of extraordinary people like Virginia Woolf, Gandhi, Mozart and a few more. It classifies these people as Masters (Mozart since he mastered his domain which was music), Makers (Freud who created the domain of Psychoanalysis), Introspectors(Woolf who tried to delve deeper in to her mind and subconscious ) and Influencers (Gandhi who influenced people with his ideologies).

Have just started it.....so will write more later.

London has won the Olympic bid. Well it was a nail biting finale.....yesterday all the tv channels were only talking about the bid results and how close a race it is between Paris and London. Considering the fact that London was not a favourite last year this is highly commendable and also considering the fact that this was Paris' 3rd time bid.

During such competetion one can actually see the intensity of the rivalry between the Brits and the French.Some ppl just wanted London to win to spite the French which was so funny.Ofcourse they do have a historic rivalry, but it gets swept under the surface normally and comes out with full vigour during such competetions.

Whatever the case, London has an opportunity to host a great show and they shd make full use of this opportunity. Thousands of jobs will be created which shd be good for the economy.

House leak repaired...yahoooooooooooooooo....was sucha relief to go back to a dry kitchen....:-)))) I was thrilled......