On the parchment

Agile means division of tasks and adapting to change in the plans. You will see the irony in the concept conflated here, in a minute. Let's consider our common woman, rather a common wife found next door and draw an analogy to the agile process that is followed almost in every project in all the companies around the world. For the sake of this analogy and respect to all grandmothers, great grandmothers and some mothers in previous generation, I have not considered the Agile Wife as a working woman here. You can extrapolate that scenario from this one and empathize if you are a human being. For those of you who are not familiar with Agile concept, here is a synopsis. A product is broken into stories by means of requirements, requirement is analyzed and refined by a team, assigned story point complexity, developed by another team, time and efforts vary based on the complexity, tested by another team, fixed and retested for quality, rerun many times and then demoed to stakeholders in

Clutching her handbag on her lap, Revathi kept her wet umbrella near her feet and held on to the rail in the moving bus. She noticed that a lady got on drenched in rain, in the following bus stop. She moved towards Revathi in the crowded bus. That's when Revathi noticed her belly. It was big. She must be at least six months pregnant, thought Revathi. Not battling her thoughts of standing in the crowded bus for the next hour, Revathi graciously gave up her seat to the pregnant lady. The lady seemed confused at this generosity and politely declined the offer. Revathi insisted that she sat there and got up from her seat. Realizing that if she didn't take the seat, someone else would, the lady accepted and thanked Revathi. Revathi held on to the overhead rails and moved along the momentum in the crowded bus, content with her own gesture. The next day Revathi settled in the same seat in the same bus. The lady with the baby bump got on at her stop and stood near Revathi. Revathi stoo

Wednesday morning, Revathi was waiting in the bus stop in her neatly pressed cotton saree, handbag on her shoulder, lunch bag in one hand and umbrella in another. She looked at her watch on her right hand and gave an exasperated sigh. Bus was late again. Just when she was about to sit, she saw the bus slowly making its way towards the deserted bus stop. Folding the umbrella, she got on the bus. She was tired already and was looking at a long day at work. She flashed her bus pass at the conductor, found an empty seat and sat there. She kept her belongings on her lap and looked outside the window. She squirmed in her seat as her back pain was acting up again. She travelled at least an hour to work, one way, everyday. Another lady got on the bus in the following bus stop and sat next to her. She was a foreigner, a white lady. She seemed British from her accent when she spoke to the conductor. Revathi turned back to the window and adjusted in her seat again.  The bus kept moving, bumping o

Rating 3/5 The narrative started with a small kid who is listening to a story narrated by a co-passenger. The dialogue delivery seemed a bit of a drag and the lame story of soldier and the fish was irrelevant. To top it, the actress in the present, started to chase a stranger who painted the story across the city. This was all too much drama as the narrative maneuvered itself through lots of sub-plots to glorify the this handsome artist. The songs, albeit a bit church-y (made me feel like I was watching the movie inside a church during a mass prayer) were melodious and calming. Alexander's screen presence was for the sole purpose of a comedy track to add a humor to the otherwise serious and intriguing story. His dialogues and his demeanor were so phony that it makes us wonder if he fell into a time machine back to the MGR-Sivaji era.  His attempt at acting should be appreciated though. The beautiful backdrops and the well dressed actress were unnecessary for the story but that was

Ever since the doctor told my little brother to wear spectacles for his headache, on a regular basis, he had been in a foul mood. While all my friends thought my little brother, who is seven years younger than me, looked very cute in those shell framed spectacles, I, as a sibling obviously was not going to utter any such thing remotely close to cute, be it about him or his specs. One day, he came back from school and my mom found that he wasn't wearing specs. On her asking, he told her that his friends made fun of him because of the shell frame. My mom firmly said that he was not to remove his specs under any circumstances other than for sports. He knew better than to go against her words.  She reminded him of what the doctor said, that if he wore them all the time, he'd be able to get rid of them for good in a year. He did get rid of them eventually though... The following day, he came home again without his specs on and my mom was furious. He assured her that he wore them the

Why do people feel entitled to something they don't have and the others have? Moving to Bangalore is by far the most suffering and sacrificial thing I have ever done in my life. The only good thing about this wretched city is my husband is in it. As if this isn't bad enough, travelling to work everyday doesn't make it any better. The bus journey takes over 2 hours one way.  More often than not, I get a seat to sit in the bus and I choose my seat wisely since the journey to home is long. Given my physical stature, people are drawn to sit next to me. Let me put it this way. People see me as a thin girl occupying a whole seat that I don't deserve. This is one of many such incidents. The bus was almost empty and a lady boarded. I could see her eyes scanning for thin passengers just so she could sit next to them and occupy two seats and leave the scrap to the thin one. As fate would have it, she sat next to me. The bus seemed to be taking in more people in the following s