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...