I feel torn in two sometimes - between my professional and personal lives. I don't understand where I draw a line between my two lives. Right now, its only Arjun and me, and already I feel torn in two at times. I wonder what I'm going to do when we have kids. If they'r unwell and I have to go to office, I wonder how I'l do it. I know there will be times when I may miss a school function or sports day, but I don't know how I'l do it. It scares me. When we have kids, I am going to be a SAHM for a couple of years, but then what? I'd go crazy if I gave up work permanently. Who's going to hire me again after a couple of years? My contemporaries would be ahead of me and so would my juniors. My family would go crazy and disown me if I focussed wholely and solely on them - I'd only end up driving them up the wall :P

I love my work. I want kids and a family and the whole works - but it's the balance thing which is right down scary. How would I draw a line between my personal and professional lives? When would I know when to skip the school function and attend the meeting or when do I postpone the meeting and attend the school function? Wise people tell me that at that time I will have to take a call on the situation and listen to my heart. Knowing me, my heart would be torn in two. How do you do it?

I feel like I'm burning the candle at both ends. Yet I can't manage to keep the most important people in my life happy. I wonder what is it that I can do more. I wonder where it is that I went wrong somewhere down the line. Why do I get to hear this time and again?

So now it is confirmed. I am woman. Joy to the world. 82% people think this blog is written by a woman. Smart people :P

You can also check out your blog's gender here.

Now, according to my browser history, the likelihood of me being a male is 54% and the likelihood of me being a female is is 46%. Wokayyyyy. People I'm having a gender crisis here.

You can verify your gender as determined from your blogging history here.

I thought I had left my studying days behind. I don't want to study. I don't want to research. I don't want to brief. For god's sake, you have a file, read it like the rest of us do. And if you don't understand something, figure it out. I'v been in this profession for 2.5 years, you'v been here for 20+. I want to sleep. No actually, I want to curl up with a good thriller and a cup of hot chocolate inside my lovely brown razai (blanket) with the fan running on 2. I want to go no an all-India trip visiting everyone. I don't want to sit and research on an erratic law research website.

Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Yeah...well I hadn't posted in ages cuz I have been busy working at another client's office where I finished my work before the deadline, but we couldn't obviously tell the client that in these times of recession so we bravely soldiered on for the past 2 days. Thankfully I could access Facebook for these few days but very weirdly the blogsites were blocked, so I was unable to post for sometime.

Anyway, I'm not working tomorrow...yipppeeeeeeee. Finally after 3 long months, I 'm not working this second Saturday. And its Valentine's Day but Arjun has to work :(

Maybe we'l do a movie and a dinner when he gets home. Let's see. And I was planning to wear my new LBD, but its suddenly become a little chilly again and the typical Bong that I am, I have to be all covered up so its going to be my ol' faithful - jeans. Unless of course the temperature does rise. Anyway I'm all excited since its the first time that Arjun and me will be celebrating together (I was in Bombay in 2007 and last year Arjun's grandfather had just passed away a couple of days prior). Of course celebrations have already begun - he's put this lovely video with his thoughts on my Ipod for me titled as 'To the Mrs.'

There are alot of people who think that V-day is just something that Archie/ Hallmark have come up with to generate sales and that its a western concept. Okay, so tell me where did we get this tradition of cuting a cake on our birthdays from? Traditionally birthdays (janamdin?) were celebrated with 'ma ke haath ka halwa - gajar/ monng dal/ sooji - take your pick' and maybe daan (donation) at the temple. How many of us actually do that these days? I'm wondering if Mr. Muthalik does that. I'm also wondering how Mr. Muthalik's (Shriman Muthalik?) female relatives - his mother, sister, wife, daughter, aunts etc. tolerate him and his ilk. They should all simply gherao, colour his face black and garland him with a joote ka maala (garland of shoes) and parade him around the town on a donkey. Hey that's the traditional way of punishing someone socially. Going to pubs and beating up people is not traditional. That Shriman Muthalik is called goondagardi in plain and simple language.

Beating up women - hmm now that's a tradition in our country. Women have been beaten up for dowry, for being a woman, because their husband/ father/ brother had a lack in life etc etc. Is that the kind of tradition that Mr. Muthalik wants to maintain?

So Mr. Muthalik, enjoy all the pink chaddis - decorate your office and your house with them and remember you men will never be able to cow us women down. I am a loose and fast woman - yes I enjoy my drink and I enjoy meeting my friends for a drink after work once in a while. I also eat non-vegetarian food. My husband is proud of me and my father-in-law makes my drink once in a while. My brother-in-law tells me to try a Mojito and my brother has tried in vain to convince me to try a beer (which I don't drink simply because I don't like the smell). Oh and my dad was the first to make me a drink while my sister and her best friend got me drunk for the first time in college since they wanted me to know what to do when I am drunk. I have downed vodka shots with one senior and polished off half a bottle of wine (red in case your interested) with another senior.

Mr. Muthalik - grow up. Our country has many many more issues to think about then why do women drink. Women are not the ones who drink and then go beat up their husbands by the way, bu women have definitely led enough and more drives against liquor.

Oh and thanks for the sari, though I haven't gotten mine yet.

Three women abduct, rape man in Karachi

Check this out folks. Dog biting a man is of no news but man biting a dog deserves 24/7 coverage.

I have a daily calendar on my desk, with a thought for each day. Today's though of the day is:

"A border can be drawn on a map only after it is first drawn on human hearts."
- Anonymous

This is one thought which really struck me. Don't we see it in Kashmir today? Borders were drawn on maps before the borders could be drawn on human hearts. Had the borders been drawn on human hearts, would we have had all this bloodshed today? Would we have had Kargil? Would we have had the various blasts and the Taj seige?

I guess its easier to draw a border on a map than it is to draw a border on a human heart. We saw it first during the Bengal partition when the British divided East Bengal (which is today known as Bangladesh) and West Bengal. When you draw a border on the map, you have to make the heart understand that border. Today, we have trespassers/ intruders on our land. We will fight them and throw them out. But my question is why do they trespass? Maybe because this was once their home too. By drawing a line on a map, you may have thrown someone out of their home.