Wham wham wham!

Right! That's how things happened to me (notice how i say "happen to me"? well, that's how it is with me, for the better part) after Diwali. Spent some days lazing around at office, and then one fine day Sankar sir (my mentor) calls me to his cabin and pops the question - "Do you have any problem if we send you north?" I thought over for a few seconds. I was born in Kerala, raised in Kerala, schooled in Kerlala and I adore the place. Its an amzing place to live in. But being just out of college, and after idling away a few months in Bangalore, a part of me was yearning for a taste of adventure. So when Sankar sir asked about it, I considered the options in front - Manesar ( near Gurgaon, not bad), Haridwar (no booze or meat - oh no!  ) and Baddi (Himachal, just 100 km from Shimla - now that's what I'm talking about!). So I told sir Baddi is okay for me and within a week I was whisked away to site!

     On Nov 13 we landed at Gurgaon, and stayed there for three days, for a short visit to the Manesar facility. But we spent the time much more productively - roamed around the Gurgaon malls, Rashtrapathi Bhavan, Dilli metro, mutton kheema from Nawab's etc. And on Nov 15th, we journeyed to Baddi.

    Since Baddi is in Himachal and all, you might have pictured it as a cute little town nestled in a valley or something. Well,atleast I pictured it that way. But boy- wasn't I in for a surprise :D To give you a brief idea about the place, Baddi, for all practical purposes could be a part of Haryana/Punjab/HP. Thats how much of a borderland it is. Its is not on the hills, but is bordered by the Shivaliks. To reach there, you either catch a train/flight from Delhi to Chandigarh. From there its a 47 km drive to Baddi. It was a small village till about three years  back. Then the government declared it an excise exempt zone enticing a lot of industries to move here. Now it is an unplanned industrial town with about 200 industries, a decent market , a few hotels and lot of roaming bovine. But as you traverse this place you do catch glimpses of its former beauty - field of wheat and mustard, farmers contently sleeping on their cots and that too in the middle of their fields at 10 AM! 

     Anyways we stayed at a hotel for about 10 days and after that moved to the guest house. Its been 2 and a half months now. In between I visited Kufri during snow, celebrated Christmas at Shimla and welcomed the new year at Chandigarh. Maybe those stories will come in subsequent posts.

Nandi Hills trip

Hi all.. Hope u guys had a wonderful Diwali.. As for me, we went for a day trip to Nandi Hills. Its situated about 60 km from Bangalore, and is famous for its amazing sunrise and the spectacular view. We planned to go there on Sunday 26.10.08, stay at a hotel and return on Monday. But all the hotels were booked ( well, there is only one hotel and one guesthouse.. and to top it, the hotel has only three rooms! ) But we didnt want to miss the sunrise, so we arranged for a car and left from our apartment in Benson Town at 0445 in the morning... Vinod had called on me the previous evening and I'd dinner with him and parvathy at Koshy's , so getting up early got my stomach all upset. Anyways i slept throu the one n half hour it took us to get there. Upon reaching, I was surprised to find the place already teeming with people.. mostly college gangs, biker boys and couples. Also interesting was the fact that there were two or three mallu gangs too. It was too cold and I was starting to wonder if comin this early was the right choice, when I walked to a parapet wall and lokeed over.. OMG.. the view told me that the trouble was more than worth it. With the cold biting into our skins, we got the ticket and entered the place.

Once upon a time this was the hill fort of Tipu Sultan. He had strengthened the fortifications there and also built a summer house for himself. But this fort was stormed by the British and Lord Cornwallis succeeded in capturing it. Thence on, it was used as a vacation spot by the British soldiers. They also built the Cubbon House, used as the house of the British overseer for Mysore province. This place was later used by Nehru, hosted a SAARC summit and now has been converted as the gueshouse for the Horticultural Society. This place is now renamed as Nehru Nivas.
Well, we entered the fort and followed the road which was neatly laid. After passing another guest house called Gandhi Nivas, we decided to take a small trail which turned out to be an excellent decision. After climbing down, we came up to a spot perfect for watching the glorious sunrise! Thn we moved on to the source of river Palar, a cave called Brahmashram, Two small temples and finally the summit. The summit houses the Yogandeshwara temple, and also Tipus Drop - literally a place from which prisoners were dropped ! Its a rocky cliff with an abrupt edge. The view from the edge is breathtaking, as all around is flat terrain barring a couple of hills and you can see for miles. By about 8 30 itself the young crowd had left and families started trickling in. The whole place teemed with monkeys who seemed used to having their share of whatever food the visitors had. We roamed around through the forest visiting the ponds, small park, Tipus summer place, etc.. Walking along the fort walls itself was a satisfying experience.. there were chinks in the wall at several places where one could step out and enjoy the view. After all the light trekking we were famished, and went for lunch at Hotel Maurya Pine Top. The food was barely OK, but the view from the hotel too was mesmerising. After lunch we decided to return as we'd pretty much trekked around the whole place and also it was getting warm. We left by around 12 45 and reached home at 2 15.

Oh, I almost forgot...

Guess I was too sleepy to mention it yesterday night, but I'm the proud owner of an iphone!! It happened in June. Mom was visiting her sister in rhe US and asked if I would like anything as a graduation present ( well... assuming that I'll graduate ) and what else could i ask for! My cousin there knew a guy at the Apple store, who was able to get hold of an unlocked phone, and voila! - I had an iPhone!.. Its a really wonderful mobile/entertainer and I'm so glad I got it. Thanks a million, mom n dad!!

Treading Water...

As you can see, The cat in the kennel Part 2 never got penned. Not that it matters. It has almost been a year since I wrote on my blog. Let me give you a run down on what happened during this  time.

    I did board the kannur express and had a wonderful time at Kozhikode. We booked into a nice hotel ( jackie bonded well with the moottas there ), went to the beach ( oh the infrastructure's way better than Kovalam! ), dined at the Paragon, Swagath and the little place near the beach - i forgot its name, but i still relish the exquisite dishes that rolled out of their kitchen : the meen pathiri, motta maala, and numerous others. All in all, the trip was truly memorable, though I cant say the same for the CAT. As expected, got a 90 something percentile and that was the end of CAT.

The next big thing was BIG. Chechy's marriage. Every once in a while comes a moment when you realize how much your family means to you ; no i'm not talking about just your parents and siblings, but the entire family. How much you're connected. It may have been months even years, since you've talked with some. But the warmth you feel upon meeting them remains the same. Too often we're caught up in the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, our insignificant deadlines, our pending submission, ets that we tend to forget to keep inb touch with a lot of people. It cant be helped, but its  a fact. The marriage was a hectic affair with the betrothal, mayilanchiyideel, and wedding happening in a span of one week. The mayilanchiyideel was the best of the lot since it happened at home and was so much fun.Things went exceptionally well with no last minute hiccups. Thus chechy became Merry Ann James on December 29th, 2007.

In Feb there was the road trip to Goa. Amazing. We took a train to Kanur, went to Ikkas bro's home ( the breakfast there : OMG! ) took the scorpio and were on our way! Me, ikka, thakku, alex, paandi and athul. We drove to b'lore, reached there by midnight, picked up ashwin and straightaway drove to Jog falls. After freshening up, we left from Jog falls and headed to Goa. Reached Goa in the afternoon, had an unforgettable pepparoni pizza from Domino's, and booked intp a PTDC hotel. Next day was spent at Aguada Fort and tutu's b'day trat at a Goan shack. Oh! the lunch was delicious!!.. We left at midnight and reached kannur in the evening. From there, we boarded the evening train and was back in Trivandrum by monday morning. 

The last sem of college was a drag. Life trudged on. The best parts were the mexx night(ohh yes :D ), the midnight party at dhwani stage and athul's farewell party (aww yes :D ). We breezed through the project work ( though only God knows how -and I mean it - we got the results in FLUENT ) and Rajkumar sir grudgingly approved the report. Final year exams were a breeze.

The month after college was spent at home. Gave company to mamma ( did I mention she'd retired?... yeah, in June. The retirement party was a good one. I 've never seen so many wasted professors together :D ) 

On July 7th I left for Kolkata. Reached there in the afternoon, and was recieved by Deepa chechy and Vijay. Went to their apartment, and chatted away half of the night. They're a really cool couple. Then next day evening they dropped me at the Fortune Park Hotel I was booked into. The ITC orientation program continued for 9th, 10th and 11th. Kolkata is a very different place, one were contradictions exist side by side. I was nducted to CPO ( Central Projects Organization ) , the projects divsion of ITC. 

On 12th morning, before the sun was up, we left for bangalore and reached there before noon. We checked into VSL Grand , our serviced apartments, and then left to HO. There we met the office guys over a sumptuous lunch. The traing program, which continued till July 3rd week was eventful and fun. We had site visits to Pune, Gurgaon, Delhi and Haridwar, the OBL program at Pegasus, talks by various consultants, PIGL, dummy project, first aid training, software course, presentations, the whole deal. Then for another month we had a relaxed time at CPO with pretty much no work. We used to go to office, watch movies, play contra (!), chat... In between, we organized a mass cut and I sneaked away to chennai with tuttu. I met a lot of college buddies, but the highlight was meeting up with Soorya, Greg and Royce and catching up with them. Bought my first saree for mamma from Soorya's boutique, Aavarana! Visited Spencers, Kumarakom, The French Loaf, City Centre, Marina beach and Shantome Church.

Yaaaawn... its 12 30 and the call of the bed is endearing.. This entry is not much ( ...that feel is not there) but I wanted to get it done today, and is more of a log of waht happened between my last entry and this. Adios... 

The Cat In The Kennel [part 1 of 2]

I have the last of my series exams tomorrow, but the numerous requests by my regular readers have forced me to come up with a new page[...i wish :)] Hey, if i don't write my book who else will alle? So here's another page from my book.

This year's CAT exam falls on November 18th- this weekend. And college is abuzz with with greetings of 'machu, kannur expressil-il alle', 'ah, cat puli ethiyallo', 'neeyum cat ezhuthunnundo?', 'enna cheyyaana kaashu koduthu poyille', etc... And I'm also eagerly waiting to board the Kannur express this friday. No, its not the cat I'm after, but like most of the commuters that day, its the beach and the biriyanis that I'm looking forward to.

The prologue of my cat story falls sometime during 3rd sem, when i got bored of my subjects surprisingly early. Everyone knew of mba before, but it was from that time that terms like 'IIMs' and 'fat paychecks' and stuff began to enter our lexicon. Looking back, i smile at my naivety. I had next to zero understanding of what an mba really was. At home, the decision of my career was left to me, though my parents expected me to choose engineering( That was n is pretty much the order of the day). I didn't disappoint them and took mechanical engineering. But on a positive note, I thank my stars for not making me opt any other branch :). Anyways, it took only a year for me to come to terms with the fact that engg was not something that I loved very much. The subjects were boring and the classes were monotonous. And at that point of time, mba looked as much inviting as does a fire escape during an inferno.

Well, that's stretching things a bit too far. I didn't hate engg that much. But the point is that I saw mba as an escape route from engineering. I assossiated all the fun part of cet life with mba - the fests, the organizing stuff, extra cc reading,... Even bunking classes were soon linked with mba[not that anyone's complaining.. :)]. Soon 2nd year was over and 3rd was well on its way to being over. And it was time to turn all the talk into action.

I'm staying at YMCA( the only YMCA I've seen without a basketball ground), and IMS was quite near. TIME, the only other choice, was pretty far away. With all the built up beginner's enthusiasm, factors like 'not being late to class', 'staying back after class', 'discussing with the faculty', etc meant that the proximity of IMS cinched the deal in favor of it. So by the middle of the 6th sem, I joined IMS. They make you write a Preliminary Test (PT), and my score was real good. Surendrakumar sir calls up and says if i had gotten one more answer right, then I'd have aced that year's cat. ( Have you seen the ad for naukri.com where a guy is shown into a restroom marked VIPee and he swells up with pride... well I wasn't very different). I cheerfully lugged home the quite heavy 'reference material' and went for classes for bout two weeks. Then came the sem end rush and lets just say IMS cat didn't even cross my mind till the beginning of 7th sem.

As with all new sems, 7th also started with resolutions to jog daily, get to sleep on time, etc. There was an addition to the list this time - the cat ofcourse! So i went, straight to Surendrakumar's office, had a nice motivational chat with him. "Okay kris, how many hours a day do you spend for CAT?"..."Uh, zero?..".."Okay, how many sections have you completed in the ref material?".. "None...?"..and so it went. In the end he did convince me to start browsing through the reference material. I came straight to hostel and did two chapters from arithmetic &algebra. To date, they remain the only chapters I've gone through in the entire reference material.

(To be contd..)

And thus i start my book...

Hello world... whew! Never thought i would actually get around to saying that. You see, I've been fascinated with the concept of logging since i first heard bout it and like a million others around the world decided then and there to start my own blog. And left it at that. Well.. it wasn't left at that per se. Every time i logged on, i would log onto blogger, and i would browse nonchalantly through the blogs- usually of people i know, but at times that of strangers too. Writing my own thing was always there at the back of my mind, but i told myself 'you can start it later, when you've free time'. ( Bull crap, considering that I'm pursuing my engineering degree at the College of Engineering, Trivandrum) Sometimes I had the courage to actually click on the Create a Blog link, but didn't go beyond that. And so it went on and on... until today.
And my sudden inspiration? Well, I'm proud to say that it came from a blog i read! It's a blog by Eric, a wonderful and talented( Eric, if you only knew how stingy I'm with compliments ... but no, he doesn't know me that well... neither do I for that matter) friend of mine. I read his first blog and it was about how he overcame his inertia and it set me thinking. I dont know who coined it first, but it was Anthony Robbins who marketed the adage that 'to get the right answers, ask the right questions'. That's something that's so simple and yet so true, something that we overlook in our daily huff and puff, something that we forget to do so many times. And I asked myself- what is your problem? And the answer - man's numero uno fear. No, not that of death you simpletons, but that of public speaking. He he, but that's another wonderfully marketed lin, only this time by Dale Carnegie.( And it's a lie. Few are the men who have contemplated on death, on its myriad yet final ways, and woke up undisturbed, not to mention ranking it second in the 'Fear' hall of fame) Sorry to bring up such a gloomy topic in my first blog, but i just felt like saying it. And you see, that's what i started this blog for.
Yes, as i said, I'm a bit shaky before crowds. Now I consider myself as a person of sense, not profound or anything but at least common, and I don't think that I'm the kind of person who blabbers a lot either. So what was it that was holding me back? Hmm, it was fear, the fear of ridicule. Of criticism. Of sarcasm. Of not being politically correct. And again, Eric's blog came to my rescue. The way in which he overcame his own demons. Now that was definitely not the first time I heard bout the solution he tried. I had read those lines umpteen times before. In the movie The Three Kings, George Clooney says to a rookie marine 'The way it works is, you do the thing you're scared shitless of, and you get the courage AFTER you do it, not before you do it.'
Yes its a dumbass way to work but that's the way it is. So I mustered my courage and when the opportunity rose today with my internet connection being restored, I lost no time.
At this point, I would like to bring to your attention one more thing. This is no news for most of you, but your blog might be touching the life of numerous people around you. In ways you might no be thinking. Most of the time without your knowledge. Just like Eric's inspired me. So before I begin I salute those of you who take the time, effort and courage to share bits of your lives with everyone in this world. You are changing the world by leaving your footprints,... your lingering footprints... that may guide some wandering soul to a better path in this life.
My 2nd internal exam of the 7th semester starts today. I haven't read a word on it. But I've no regret. I'm facing one of my demons, one that's been with me for so long that I had almost warmed up to it. And for me that is a big step. Its 12:45 AM, 12th November 2007.
And thus I start my book...