That 16 days...

I am so sorry for not posting for a long time. I had been busy with exams and prayers to attend in my native place for my grandmother. But during my absence online a lot of interesting things happened.
It was one of those days that I had to go to spencers plaza to get my routine fix for money at IOB bank. While I was there I bumped onto a blogging friend, Shalini. It was totally out of the blue. We have never really met and talked, if you don’t consider the bloggers meet organized by Indi blogger, in which we never spoke nor had eye contact. We were planning on meeting up before but our commitments would never let us. And I guess I was lucky.
But my luck didn’t stop there. In that week I had to clear 2 more of my exam for CCVP. I was literally studying at every minute I got. For the first time after a really long time I was studying diligently cos I have a deadline to meet. I will tell you more about the deadline later. As Cisco exams can be taken from any testing centers at any time any day. So my plan was to write 2 in 3days. I scored full marks for both exams!! Its multiple choice questions, but they were tough. I still don’t know how on earth I pulled that off.
Then I stated to wonder, what have I done to deserve this luck? I have not been praying to god nor visit temples as I am not allowed to for 16 days after the death of my grandmother. During these 16 days I have to be vegetarian. Is all the Sambar (a gravy made of vegetables and lentils) I eat almost 3 times a day. Is it the good nutrition that I have been getting these days giving me more memory power? Or is it my grandmother smiling at me from above? I seriously don’t know. During this time that I am vegetarian, I tended to get hungrier all the time. I had to keep my mouth munching on samosas and tidbits. I have this endless craving. By the time I reached the 10th day dogs in the street started to look like lamb shanks. I just could not wait for the 16th day to be over and I could feats on just meat. How to vegetarians control that desire? Do they tell themselves “killing is bad and cruel”? I take my hats off to them for such self control. To me the hardest thing is to walk pass KFC, smell then chicken and to leave without hunting the chicken inside.
Whatever that is these 16 days were memorable, hard, tested my control and gave me lots of rewards.
If it all it took was just to stay vegetarian, maybe I will start by taking baby steps. Maybe starting from next year I will take short vegetarian fast.
About the deadline, I have a return ticket to Singapore on the 28th December, if I didn’t had to attend a funeral, I would have comfortably finished my CCVP by this date and head back. Now it is close to a near impossible climb to finish the final 2 exams by that day.