Networking..

I was at a two-day conference (all done now, uff). Thankfully it was here in Mumbai so at least I don't have to tear my hair out thinking about how to manage it all. These things are generally in Delhi or some such; I absolutely hate going to Northern parts in December as its so awfully cold there . I invariably look absurd as I end up needing to wear my thick American winter coat, Plus there is the whole deal with what to do with my girl and her school and her lunch and what not. Anyway December is the time for all such situations and I go to at least one every year. This year, I am glad that it happened here in Mumbai.

I am also reading, for some strange reason unknown to me, the book called 'never eat alone' (amazon's page). I strongly recommend you DON'T read it, its most ridiculous, but somehow I am unable to stop reading it (imagine having in your hands a very badly written murder mystery, its like that). I picked the book up (no idea by the way how it comes to be here in our house, I surely did not buy it) thinking that it has sound advice for new-age couples (Wow! in my heart I think I am young I guess!), and talks about work-life balance and so on. But it is not that at all! It is about this really scary concept called networking! Ugh!

He has a section called Conference Commando where he talks about how to make the best of a conference. I don't think he is completely wrong. I used to struggle with how to talk to people at these gatherings, most especially when I was looking for jobs and so on. I also generally like to do what needs to be done when at a conference. So this section was somewhat relevant I thought. The rest was all garbage because I thankfully don't seem to need to do the things he refers to (I would have quit my job in a heart beat if so!).

Anyway I was going to be at this soiree this week, and the topic came up in his book, so I read more and more of the book. He talks intensely and for reams of pages about how to build your network and how to fill your calendar, and the most important art of 'following up' after you first meet a person. Mostly he emphasises that rather than looking at the meeting as an opportunity to further your lot, you should try to make friends with the person and find mutual interests. Which is a good point, makes sense.

But somewhat mid-way in the book he reveals that his marriage broke up and that he was very upset about it. That is when I went, hmm, perhaps it happened because you were too focussed on filling your rolodex and paid less attention than you should have to a more important relationship. But whatever, marriages break up for a number of reasons and it is presumptuousness to think that it is because the person was too busy working. The thought does have a pleasing simplicity to it, though!

I go to this conference and am just sort of looking around. First tea break comes. I hang out by myself, soaking things in. Wondering what my agenda should be (and when I should break out so that I can make it back to my office for a meeting I don't want to miss). And this guy whom I know from another context has the gall to come up to me and say "shouldn't you be networking? talking to all these people?" Okay, deep breath here. I quickly retort "i am here, they are welcome to come and network with ME" which is all just bluster of course, I don't even know, just irritated with unsolicited advice.

In the end I cut away from him, sat separately, and talked to the two people I thought would have interesting things to say (one of them did, but then it also resulted in him almost convincing me to go to Chandigarh later this month blaaag it will be so cold there; and the other was a complete idiot and a waste of skin it turned out). And many people must have heard me say my cocky dialogue because I was collared by several people. So Ha! But I was still a bit irritated all of yesterday as I convinced myself that all the men together were collaborating in exuding a male smell. Just to make me feel alienated.

Today, the second day, started well. I was in a better mood and less worried about the smell (therefore, it was not there). And the annoying advice guy was late so I went off to the front of the room and was hanging out and listening to the talks and chatting up with a couple of people. Break time again, the guy walks up to me and goes 'Good Morning' Innocently I say Good Morning Are you doing okay Enjoying the talks etc. He says 'Did you just come?' Well, I could have just arrived. No big deal. I have bigger fish to fry. Perhaps. But you know, sometimes, there is a look, there is a tone. I was so done with this guy.

Other than that the day went real well, I learned a lot, I met some very nice people, which I did not expect. Many of the presentations were made well and everyone had interesting things to say. Again unexpectedly, I got a lot of questions on my presentation which meant that people were listening (despite the tough 3 pm post lunch slot I had). I have even wound up my notes from the conference - just blurbs on what various people want from us to pass on to my colleagues who could not attend- and made it back in decent time to pick up the girl from the creche.

Most importantly, I wore a sari and bindi and was all very comfortable although I had to spend the whole entire day in it. I wore a grey Mysore silk one which was a good choice all told...

Liquid Diet

I occasionally joke that we are still on liquids. I mean when people start eating their dinner and as far as I can tell, the husb. & I are still sipping (uhh gulping) our liquids. And startlingly, the child has inherited my capacity for liquids and solids. She does pretty well with juices and milk and lassi and so on but is particularly annoying with chewy things like naans and tofu and so on. Anyway we met up with a big bunch of friends over the break and it was great fun as usual. Other than that we drove around all over Chennai and met with all nearby relatives, which was a lot of fun too. The little niece was there and boy, she has a TON of hair. We all took turns coochie-cooing her and of course missed her like crazy when she left early one morning. Somehow the entire family was united in stating that he fully deserved it when she unleashed some potty on the husband. He was acting all smug and showing off and saying look she is so comfy with me; she is hanging out in my lap; she loves her big uncle and so on and really, we all felt very satisfied at the end of it. MIL and I are generally pathetic in estimating the amount of rice required to feed a normal family. This time was no exception and much to everyone's mirth we had about three times as much puliodarai as could feed a small hostel of teenagers. But it was yummy. With great enthusiasm, the husband and I, in one voice, decided to stop denying crackers to our child. It is her decision to abhor and avoid them in her later years, obviously. We bought her some flower pots and those swirly wheel things and of course sparklers. I was quite surprised at how brave she was with all of it, and, how unnecessarily worried I was (I am turning into my own mom, heaven help me). I wore saris like it was no one's business. I even took a nap wearing my sari. Of course the monster was all over the paavadais. We had two exercise sessions (I prudently wore shorts to those; not the sari). A 5k run followed by stairs one day. A 7k run and a game of basketball the other day. The latter with two old buddies from college; it was just too poignantly happy an occasion. We were all back in the old alma mater and lo and behold one of the markers (the guys who put that rangoli white thing to mark the tracks and so on) whom we know from our days as students showed up. He got us a ball and some water. We played. It was nice. I held back my aggression though regretted it later when in the night drinking session the boys felt smug on winning the game. Pssh. Food-wise, apart from mountains of puliodarai, I was very careful and cautious. I ate two pieces of Kaju Katli. One very small piece of thattai. Two vadais (that MIL made); and two more vadais (from Saravana Bhavan, with the breakfast idlis). When we ate out, I ate rice and sambar and curd. In small quantities. I ate one Gulab Jamoon that a relative offerred us (she had made it herself). BUT I woke up yesterday and my stomach was lurching around. I am still in bad shape. Tired and stomach is cramping. Must test how the lunch will work out... See, liquids are better.

Is it Red or Pink?

I had a party to attend last night. One of my friends at work got married recently and threw us a dinner party here to celebrate. He said no gifts please. Most of us stuck to this, some people did not (not my problem!).

I, of course, decided to wear a Sari. She picked a nice traditional paavadai for itself. I asked her for colours (yeah, we pretty much have one in every colour). I veered her towards the pink one as it was right there, no need to search. Then she recommended Orange for me. I took out my two orange saris but was not inspired. So I picked my bright red one. Maybe its sort of pink. Not sure. Everyone commented on how similar we both looked (HA!).

This is an old sari. Although its not the maroon that I love, its definitely one of 'my' colours. Nowadays of course I do much brighter colours than before - lime green, full red, yellow - as well. But I used to like this sari even earlier when I would not even touch electric blue.

If memory serves, my grandparents gave me this sari. It must be at least ten years old. Probably more like fifteen. They bought saris for all us (hopefully something for the guys too) ladies. I was quite pleasantly surprised to qualify for this because it was a first for me. People would get me dresses and paavadais and stuff but not saris (meaning, they thought I was too young for saris). It is a nice soft silk, with minimal work in the body. The border is a very thin bit of black (as is the pallu). The border and pallu are worked in thread of several colours. There is no zari at all. All of these features meet my approval. I have many saris with zari, I don't dislike it per-se, but...

So I dragged the sari out, it was neatly pressed and stuff from the last time I wore it (very long ago which was). The monster girl was pretty excited for some reason about this party. She dressed herself (mostly) while I draped. The sari is so soft (compared to my usual stiff Kanjeevarams with their miles of zari) that I did not even need to switch the fan off. The pleats came out perfect, or nearly so. The last pleat, my usual nemesis, had an iron crease which worked out well. The pallu pleats did good to. My plain black blouse fit well. Recently this blouse thing is a nightmare. I definitely need new ones. Everything is sort of loose in some places (i.e. chest) and tight in others (i.e. my fat muscly arms). Thankfully this one was good. Its a new-ish one so the sleeves were exactly as I like them (super short).

Of course I could not find any bindis. I always make it a point to wear bindis when I wear saris. Usually I wear two. And also bangles, usually two. Thankfully the monster recently got, as a gift, one of those things with liquid bindis in all colours. "Never mind amma you can wear this" it said. Cool. I picked a spot of red and a spot of black and felt well pleased with the effort (though it was a bit off-center and all). My hair was a mess, with some oil going on in it. I washed my sticky face after draping the sari. The monster went potty after my entire sari operation was complete (so what? I am used to it now. I can handle it, only cotton saris that get squished easily get ruined, the silks handle all such monkey tricks OK. Anyway what is the choice? I HAD to wash its back-side).

When I returned home from the party, where she had exhausted herself running circles around people, I was changing and was thinking "Gosh! I do LOVE saris." Then WHY don't I wear them more often? I really don't know. Shoba Narayana in her MINT column recently insisted that the sari was dying out. She was talking about the professional world. I made my husband read it and he started telling me I am sell-out because I wear pants when I make my presentations. He strongly feels I should wear a sari. I always feel guilty about it too, especially since I do like saris, and am generally comfortable in them.

Anyway for now my excuse is that all the saris I own are too bright to inflict upon hapless engineers in their black suits. In real fact I would not even wear footwear with any bit of bling on it for such occasions. I don't do cotton and other materials of saris too comfortably (I generally only wear silks though I LOVE Bengal cotton saris and admire them wide-eyedly when someone wears them). I absolutely only wear saris (no salwar kameez or such 'half measures' as I like to think of them) at weddings and such occasions. I have even happily worn the nine-yards sari whenever the MIL thought it would be nice to (and tied it for me - I dont know to do the proper Iyengar nine-yards sari). And, to be sure, I am packing saris for my Deepavali trip to Chennai!