Vishful Thinking...

A Trip to Gopalaswamybetta, Bandipur and Mysore

2009-12-22T02:07:00.000-08:00

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The last weekend was an amazing time - took for a trip to the Mysore region with a gang of friends. Just after midnight, early Saturday morning, 7 of us (including self and the missus) trooped into a rickety old Qualis and made our way to Gopalaswamybetta.

We reached the hillock at around 7 am only to be treated to rib chilling cold and mist and fog! Some pics from the Godly place where mist hangs around till noon apparently!

We left Gopalaswamybetta at around 9 to move towards Bandipur. It was a pretty short drive, and within an hour we were at the gates of Country Club, Boshbetta. Some bargaining found us gaining an entry for 1500 rs per day per head for stay and food (against the regular charge of 2500 rs! Guess my course on negotiations has already started working in my innards). The resort was very well done with loads of things to do during a lazy holiday - from TT to carrom to swimming to snooker.

The rest of the day passed by without much activity - we just decided to take the early morning safari the next day and booked a Bolero camper for the trip.

On Sunday, we all tore ourselves from our beds, tired from sleeping late after useless chatter the previous night - little did we know what we were to be treated to that day! At around 7, our jeep set out from the resort. And pretty soon we were into our 'jungle safari' in an open top jeep. The first hour provided us some sights to settle down into the trip.

Then we spotted a jeep rushing towards the other side of the forest. On our catching up, the driver of that jeep informed us that a tiger had been spotted a short while ago near a watering hole. Excited to our bones, we rushed behind the jeep ourselves. In a couple of minutes, we were there, only to find 5 other jeeps waiting before us! But none had the clue to where the beast was and were simply trying their luck in hoping to spot the animal though it had been spotted more than half an hour ago. After going around the watering hole for a few minutes, we lost hope and went back to the other side of the forest to resume our safari in the direction we had planned. This time, we saw a few other beings.

As we kept moving on in the muddy path, our jeep screeched to a sudden halt. And this was the reason:

Our guide told us that the mark was fresh!! We then went on in the path and spotted the marks in a couple of other places. But the beast itself did not make its presence felt. After going around for 15 mins, we lost hope (again).

Our driver now took us back to the watering hole again. We were near the end of the 2.5 hour trip, and any moment he could declare the safari closed. But he wanted to check one last time before giving up. And this time, he took us deeper into the jungle where the path was covered with leaves - no other jeep had come there in a long time! And the reason was soon obvious - the path was very rough and had lots of bumps. But time went on, and we didn't spot anything even insignificant.

Jay got frustrated and declared "Even if a leopard comes now, don't wake me up. Am taking a nap".

As he said that, we were going on a rather rough patch at quite some speed. And our jeep jumped high up in the air. I was standing towards the front of the open top jeep, looking at the path ahead. As we jumped, I could see a bit beyond in the path.

What I saw caused a lump in my throat.

It seemed like a tiger was crossing the road - a couple of hundred metres away from us. None of the others (save Raghavan) had seen it cos they were all seated. And the tiger was beyond a huge hump in the road that blocked our vision. We could spot it for a second only cos' of the bump that we ran on. It was like a movie scene where the hero is introduced with some flashes of appearance!

Fighting to get the words out of my mouth, I bleated: "Heyyyyy.. Tiger..".. By then we had reached the hump on the road.

And everyone could see for themselves.

There was this shining yellow beast, loitering beneath a tree. 100 metres from us.

Pic Courtesy: KiKa

While I expected our jeep to stop dead, our driver raced faster than ever in the general direction of the tiger!!! He stopped on a sudden brake only after we reached right next to the big cat.

We all held on to dear life as the animal kept walking and staring at us in alternation for 2-3 full minutes.

Every time the tiger went past us, our driver would rev up the jeep and go right next to it. The tiger would pause and take a look at us hapless beings, and then move on. This happened half a dozen times!

I kept waiting for the perfect pose and perfect shot of the tiger.. While my 10x zoom did help (and was probably not even needed for the animal was just 15 feet away), I couldn't get into the right position for a good click.

Finally, the last full pic I took of the tiger was along the lines of what I wanted to click.

As I yearned for more front-on shots of him, the tiger slowly got into the thicket, not to be seen again.

Here's the full video :)

There are only 17 tigers in the whole of the national park. And it's a hugeeeeee expanse. We were really lucky to spot this one!

Few experiences get me excited in life. This was one.

Dazed by the whole thing, we rushed back to the resort to gobble down breakfast, spotting this tamed pachyderm on the way.

On the way back, we stopped over at Mysore briefly to catch the lighting thing at the palace.

The video below captures the exact moment when the serial lights are turned on. Thanks to KiKa for this video!

Hitchcock Rocks!

2009-12-17T21:54:00.001-08:00

Have been watching Hitchcock movies in the last couple of days and have fallen in love with the man's style!

Psycho was the first one I watched. Though I kinda guessed the plot half way through, there were some elements in the movie that kept me doubtful until the end. Can guess what kind of a rage this movie must have been in 1960 when it was released. Similar movies are still being made today, 50 years after the master made his version! Hitchcock was surely ahead of the times.

The second one was Rope. A very short movie - just an hour and a quarter. But very stylishly made. Loved the strong characterisations, and the amazing histrionics of everyone involved. Each character was amazingly convincing - especially the important 3 of Brendon, Philip and Rupert.

* Spoiler Alert *
The plot of the movie thickens bang after the titles, when we find Brendon and Philip strangling a friend of theirs - as they converse after that, you chillingly realize that they committed the murder simply to prove that they were capable of doing it! Simply to establish that they could commit the perfect murder and get away with it. As you slowly get out of that, you get to know that they are throwing a party in the same room as the venue of the crime - to be attended by the nearest and dearest of the dead man. What makes it further gripping is that the food is served right on the chest inside which the dead man was dumped! A gripping tale right till the end!

I just loved the dialogues in the movie, especially Brendon's cheeky references to the murder in the presence of others, with a naughty, sly smile. A slew of double entendres!

One aspect of the movie that sets it apart is that the scenes are all loooooong. In the sense, that the camera is kept rolling for a loooooong time. And they have tried to make it seem like the entire movie was made in one shot, but you are able to identify where the cuts are made - something that let me down. Surely, Hitchcock must have known better!

But overall, I am stunned by the man! Hear from a friend that Shining is a great movie of his. Should catch up with it sometime.

--------------- Errata -------------------

Just got an alert that The Shining is a Kubrick movie. Sorry for the faux pas!

GM Diet!

2009-10-12T05:47:00.000-07:00

I am not so much of a supporter of diets. I believe more in working out rather than in cutting one's intake. The missus is a proponent of dieting. And I usually fight with her over this.

But I heard about the GM diet a couple of days back. Anyone I spoke to about this had a good thing or two to say about it. So in a sudden pang, we decided to jump into it yesterday.

The version we're following is here.

My updates:

Day 1:
86 kg before the beginning of the diet.
All fruits day.
Was kinda tired of all the fruiting and pissing around all day! And had to suppress a lot of temptations :(

Day 2:
84.7 kg! 1.3 kg down in a single day!
Today's an all vegetables day.
It's evening, and slowly getting used to the diet.
It feels great though :)
More tomorrow..

Day 3:
85.2 kg :( Gone up a few hundred grams! Not worried though.. The first 4 days are only supposed to be preparation for the last three days of dieting, which is when the actual weight loss is supposed to happen. Lets see.

Day 4:
84.1 kg :) Ah! Back on track!

Day 5:
83.6 kg - Not a stellar fall from yesterday. Nonetheless its a fall at least!

Day 6:

83.1 kg - Things look great!! 3 kg in 5 days!!

But alas :( This was the last day of my diet :( Given that this is my Thalai Deepavali, couldn't really argue with the in-laws on the validity of my diet. So broke the diet today!

And didn't measure my weight for 3 more days. Kept feeding heavily on sweets and stuff. Finally reached 86 after all the munching on the occasion of Diwali. So am back at square one, but the diet prevented me from reaching 89! In that sense, was successful!!! And the inches I lost haven't come back (as yet). And now am quite conscious of the amount of food I take, and am able to say no anything, however tempting it might be!! So on the whole, I give this diet a thumbs up.

(Note: Some people complain against this diet, saying it might lead to side effects like loss of hair. I have always been losing hair rather fast, so I didn't notice anything odd)

If you're happy and you know it...

2009-10-09T02:30:00.001-07:00

Small is big nowadays. From Twenty20 to Twitter, the message is loud and clear. One more example in this list is FML.

FML is not a very popular site - as yet. But I think it will grow bigger. The concept is simple: it eats on our tendency to gossip, to pass judgments on others, and to crib about life in general. And it is only a couple of hundred characters in length. One more instance of micro blogging a la twitter.

Drawing from this idea, this post is an attempt at another form of emo-blogging (sorry, my coinage!). This is a request to all readers to mention what made you HAPPY today. Please don't use more than a line or two. It could be a smalllllll thing, but then small is big!

So go on!! Keep the page growing for ever...

A trip to the land of the blues - IV

2009-09-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

Trip to Mauritius: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

He he he.. I haven't given up on this series :) Not yet at least! Cos my best moments of the trip are yet to be featured! Anyway, am getting bored of narrating stuff. So planning to put only pics in the 2-3 remaining posts. Here goes...

The next day began at Ile Aux Cerfs (pronounced ee-loo-surfs) beach island - Awesome place for adventure sports.

Amazing ride this!! Zooming around and falling into the ocean!!

Me - almost reached the rubber thingee.

Wifey - swimming for dear life a few metres away.

We didn't realize the ocean was only 5 feet deep beneath us!

Tandem Paragliding - this wasn't scary at all! God knows how!

They dip you once during the trip :)

A cruise ship on the way back from Ile Aux Cerfs

Outside our hotel room - just after the rains

Ditto

Freshhhhhhh!!

The stillness after the rains

(reminded me of that blue-colored Alaipayuthey shot)

Carrying a tripod around helped!

This was the REAL colour in REAL life then (8 PM)!!

Never knew nature could be so strikingly colorful

Now on to some photography lessons of sorts. The following three shots appear pitch-dark because they were taken at around 10 PM with the auto mode set in the camera.

What follows are pics of the same frames taken with the controls set manually. Basically just had an extended exposure - about 15 seconds for the first and second; 30 seconds for the last. No flash was used for these shots. Flash kills beauty in the dark!

This last pic won me a photography contest :)

(The 30-second exposure pic)

That was Dec-31 2008. Celebs at midnight!

Just when we had almost retired for the night, the revelry began all of a sudden. Fireworks lit up the sky and the ocean. And a Sega dance troupe began performing. (Sega is the Mauritian Belly Dance). Here's a video:

Mauritius Pictures

IIMB - Independence Day Video

2009-08-15T00:18:00.000-07:00

Sometime a couple of months ago, Rakesh came up with the concept of creating a patriotic video for IIMB. Mile Sur Mera Tumhara was the last rage, and he felt it was maybe time to try out a new one. So we set out working on ARR's Jana Gana Mana.

The videos were shot in a single day - surprisingly almost everything went off well that day. We had fixed time slots for the shooting for everyone - from the director of the insti, to the housekeeping staff. We simply couldn't afford to get delayed anywhere given the packed schedule. And we also had to tug along the heavy camera, monitor, tripod, blowers et al and run all around the campus. Was a verrrrry hectic day! Luckily had a good cameraman - Mr Rafiq who understood exactly what I wanted. And even more luckily have a very devoted wife who wanted to be the 'squirrel' and ended up being a lot more!

Anyway, here is the final product of my first 'professional' attempt :)

Wedding Photographers in Chennai?

2009-08-08T01:25:00.001-07:00

As Nov gets nearer, the home front is getting more and more active. As D-Day (literally!) arrives, my sis D is harder to talk to. If only her phone were any smaller, you would think it was her earring - always by her ears! And ISD isn't a barrier anymore. VoIP to the rescue of the future 'woip' of an America maaple.

To the point: This post is a request to all Chennai-ites - please suggest some good wedding photographer in Chennai. I am looking at online sources and reviews, but nothing like first hand reviews!

So if you folks know someone good in Chennai, do let me know - in the comments or by mail!

GMAT @ Tech

2009-08-02T00:28:00.000-07:00

This is an impulse post. Just heard from Techian junior Srikkant that he has scored 760 on the GMAT. This is something I wanted to tell him, but posting here as they are derived from some convictions I have in life.

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Awesome da! Congrats and best wishes! The most important thing now for you is to make proper choices.
And live with them.
I often am asked by people if I settled for less despite my GMAT score. I personally don't think so, though I am not sure how many will be able to see the sense my decision makes to me. When I took my GMAT, it was just a backup option for the future in case CAT 2007 didn't work out well. By God's grace, both worked well for me, and I stuck to my priorities I had decided on before the results came out. I am extremely happy with IIMB and am sure I made the best possible decision when I had the choices in my front. So also when I chose Tech over Anna Univ after my class 12. People still curve their eyebrows when they hear of that decision of mine. But again, absolutely no regrets from my side. Totally happy with that choice too. But had I not been so sure of my happiness with these decisions, others could have drilled into and weakened my conviction about these past choices of mine. It did require me to be considerably apathetic to others' opinions and stick to my guns, and that did require some effort.
So, in short, make your choice with good reason, and NEVER EVER regret about it later.
Cheers!
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Well that ends the letter of sorts.

I personally got very excited hearing of this news from him because GMAT had never been so popular an option at good ol' Tech. Placements had always been choice no. 1. GRE and GMAT were not too common until around the time I graduated. GRE was becoming hot at that time and saw loads of Techians seeking US visas. GMAT is still awaiting that sort of patronage from Tech. When I chose to write the exam, there were no seniors to guide me. Found it a bit difficult to accumulate exam gyan from different sources and organize them into a package of sorts (and hence happened my GMAT posts on my other blog). But again, around that time, a few of my mates at Tech took the GMAT too (JP thalai, Rathu thalai, Phalgun, Deepthi etc).
I hope successes like these will lead Tech folks in greater numbers towards the GMAT.

(p.s.: For the uninitiated, 'Tech' is the general word used to refer to PSG Tech in and around Coimbatore.)

A Trip to Elephanta Caves Mumbai

2009-07-20T04:39:00.000-07:00

This was one of the trips I went on during my internship at Mumbai. Muru gracefully agreed to come with me and was a real pain in all the wrong places with his constant bickering at my slow pace.

Lesson #1: Never take non-photography-enthusiasts on a photo walk. Or if you do, make them the models. They will shut up for a while (at least, Muru did).
While it was a nice trip overall, and for once it was great to see a well maintained place of interest inside the subcontinent, the dilapidated statues at Elephanta are a sore sight. The more one looks at it, the more painful it is. And mind you, this is not the result of inept maintenance. A few hundred years back, the Portuguese landed at these caves, and used the statues as target practice and defaced them!! As a result, what we have today is a bunch of ex-statues. Really painful to see if you know the story. While one goes expecting 1000 yrs of history, all one gets to see is 400 years of misery.
Anyway, the sob story apart, here's what transpired in that hot Mumbai afternoon of April 2009.

Adra Sakka Adra Sakka!

It's quite a long walk (half a km) from the jetty to the base of the small hillock atop which the caves reside. There's a small train that ferries people along this route.

The principle icon of Elephanta Caves - The Trimurti

That's my model - Muru - posing shamelessly as passersby look on

Practical geometry!

1 kilo mutton paaaarrrrcelllll!

Frankly an awful pic. But liked it for some vague reason!

Trip to Elephanta Caves - pictures

They made us think!

2009-07-12T06:31:00.000-07:00

After a fairly active blogging stint when I was in Mumbai, now am back at Bangy-base. Term 4 has proven to be extremely hectic. Enjoying my first couple of hours of free time in weeks now. Thought I should quickly pen down something here.

In the last couple of weeks, 2 great men visited IIMB campus and delivered engrossing lectures. The first one was Mr Nandan Nilekani. He had come just 2 days after he hit the headlines for the unique ID concept. Right timing for IIMB :) He spoke at length about 18 points (from his book). Stuff like 6 challenges, 4 ideas and so on. He then answered a few questions from the first year students (it was their orientation program). A pretty interesting event. But Mr Nandan Nilekani did not want press publicity for that event. Am guessing that was because that was his first public appearance after the news and he maybe wasn't ready enough to face the press. At the end of the lecture, had the privilege of lunching with the man along with the rest of the Student Affairs Council members.

Yesterday, another great achiever made his way to the stone walls of IIMB. You may not have heard of him. But when a person's CV goes upto 127 kB of a clear text file, he ought to be great alright.

Am talking abt Mr B V Doshi - the greatest Architect in India in recent years. A movie documentary made on him was played to us, and he himself was present to field questions at the end of it. The audi was jam packed as the video took us through the life of this person, who at 82, looks decades younger. Born in 1927, this person was awarded the Padmashri in 1976. The documentary was less about architecture, and more about life itself. Amazing person!

Some points that impressed me (paraphrased):

"Indian-ness is about frugality and making multi-purpose things. Look at the dhoti and towel - the standard Indian attire. You can use the towel to shield you from the Sun, to put down somewhere and sit on it, to cover your torso during cold, and so on. Your dhoti can double up as a rope in a small tank to draw water, as a bedsheet and so on. That is Indian-ness. Ingeniously using things very efficiently. That's what I reflect in my designs."

And actually he does that! All the buildings he has designed have been built using inexpensive material that is commonly available in the area. He also uses recycled materials and waste products to bring his designs to life. The video showed how he has designed the sofa/diwan in his living room - It serves as a seating area naturally. If you remove the cushion, there is storage space beneath the wooden planks that are the seat of the diwan. And the wooden planks are all modular - you can remove each one of them and use them as either a plank to sit on the floor on, or turn it top-side down and use it as a tray to get food and snacks!!!

"What is missing today is socially relevant architecture. People are busy in their own lives that when we build something today, we no longer plan for open spaces where people come and meet, sing, dance and celebrate life. We simply don't have the time for all that. Sad state of affairs."

That's true, and is something most people do think about. But one point that struck me real hard was this:

"We do not understand the word 'Heritage'. Heritage to us, is always monuments and relics from the past. Buildings built 1000s of years ago. We never realize that we actually have the responsibility of creating today's heritage that would be celebrated 100 years down the line. We never think of that! And it's not expensive. I always use inexpensive materials in building my designs. Creating heritage is not expensive. We just should have the intent."

How true!! This was the most interesting point that came up during the interaction, in my opinion. A few years down the line, when I build my house I will sure remember this.

One last point. You know what makes this lecture very significant? Mr Doshi is the person who designed our IIMB campus :) He is the man behind these stone walls. In the video he talks of how he designed the looooong and talllllll corridors with neat columns on either side, based on Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple :) His aim, he said, was to make people feel free and non-constrained even when inside the building.

That, he definitely has achieved.

A trip to the land of the blues - III

2009-05-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

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Trip to Mauritius: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

The next thing I heard was the ringing of the phone. Sleepily navigating myself towards the phone, I managed to pick the call up.

“H….e.ll…ll.l….oo…”

“Good morning Sir. This is the concierge.”

“Yes?”

“I called to inform you that your cab is here Sir”

I flipped my wrist over and looked at my watch. Still had an hour left.

“Ok, we will be there at 8.15 as informed to us”

“Sir, the time now is 8.20”

I sat upright.

“What?! Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

Totally awake by now, I mumbled something about my watch saying something else and promising that we will be there soon.

In the next 20 minutes, both of us operated on fast forward as they show in movies and managed to rush out by 8.40.

As we reached the cab, we were greeted by O’Brien – our guide for the day. We avoided his eyes and frantically dumped our carry bags in the car. That was when he made a strategic mistake.

Trying to scare us, he said “It’s very late, Sir. If we start anytime after 9, we would get stuck in traffic jams”.

That made my wife freeze in her tracks.

“After 9?”

“Yes ma’am.”, he said forcefully, not knowing what was coming up.

“Then we’ll have breakfast and come. We still have 20 mins”. Saying so, and not giving him time to recover from this blow, the missus pulled me and ran to the restaurant. Poor guy took a couple of minutes to re-draw his jaws from the ground.

I was not so much for breakfast then. We were already late by a half hour almost. And I absolutely HATE that. So I kept mumbling something as we filled our plates with buns, croissants, omelette etc.

Then the missus told me “You were the one who set your watch wrong. And you wouldn’t set a wake up call also. Don’t blame me for this now.”

But I HAD to have the last word.

I said “Ok”.

(Go Vishy!)

In 10 mins we were back at the car. With slightly heavier carry bags (Wink wink).

O’Brien chose to keep himself quiet as we pulled away from the scenic hotel. And luckily for us, the other couple that was supposed to join us for the day’s trip had cancelled their program. So we were virtually on private transfers, at group tour costs.

(Balls to you, tour operators.. Ha ha!)

Soon my heartbeat was back to normal, and my mind started functioning again. And that was when I realised why so many things had gone the way they did the previous day.

The tour operator lady’s comment on keeping time at Mauritius.. The hotel tour that never happened.. The server looking at us weirdly when we ordered food (cos it was way past closing time).. Ah!!!

Soon we were whizzing past Win-XP-wallpaper after Win-XP-wallpaper on our first day of touring Mauritius.

We had actually suggested that this day's trip could be cancelled and some adventure sport could be scheduled in its place. The tour office lady almost had a concussion when she heard that. Deeply hurt, she claimed that this was “the classic Mauritius tour that no one ever misses”.

My foot.

The first half of the day was filled with places I would not visit even on Google Maps.

First we were taken to a ‘glass factory’ that posters claimed “is to glass, what Madame Tussauds is to wax”. I thought the factory made glass models of celebs, and went in with some excitement.

The hallway was filled with row after row of glass models of celebrities’

Hands.

WTF!

Imagine being in a semi-dark hall. You look all around you. And all you see is model after model of glass bearing some obscure hand print. The only things that visibly differentiated the models were the plaques that called out the name of the celebrity whose lovely hand it was.

As I wondered why they had brought us to such a place, and what was so great about it, we moved on to the next room. Ah! That explained it.

One could take home a glass model of one’s own hand. For a thousand Mauritian Rupees.

Have these guys been smoking dope! Why would ANYONE want to do that! Who the hell (apart from Joey Tribbiani) could identify a hand!

A funny exhibit at the glass factory

We were out in a jiffy and went to the next stop of the day.

The ship factory.

Actually the ship model factory.

Actually one more ploy to try and part our precious money from us.

This ‘factory’ made models of ships (that were 3 full feet in length) and tried to test the IQ of tourists by offering them things for sale. But they met their match in me.

The sales lady kept dropping hints, each less subtle than the previous. Starting with “These ships are made of good quality wood”, moving on to “These are very popular souvenirs that remind tourists of the fun they had here”, and finally to the extent of pleading “Sir, we assure that we can pack this very well to tolerate the pressure of an international flight”, she tried her best. But I betrayed absolutely no emotions of even remotely considering a purchase. I looked at the ship models with the stoic eye of an Engg graduate at a factory in an Industrial Visit. My only thoughts were about the fun stuff that were planned for the rest of the day. This was just a formality that had to be done with. Soon the lady gave up and just let us walk around the showroom.

Pretty soon we were out of that place, and moved on to the first tourist spot of the day: (hold your breath, ladies and gentlemen)

The Volcano!

We were kinda excited about this one. Finally some interesting stuff which we cant get elsewhere!

O’Brien took us to a hillock (at Trou Aux Cerfs), and pointed a large pit in the valley and exclaimed “THIS is what remains of a terrible volcano.”

We peered over. The ‘pit’ was quite large, and the air was heavy with reverence.

I managed to whisper out a quiet “when did it last erupt?”

“Oh don't worry. Millions of years ago"

Plop.

(That was the heaviness vanishing into thin air)

Why again would someone want to see this? It’s been millennia since any activity happened at this place, and these nutty folks were crying over spilt lava?! Why, had this been in India, kids would have been playing cricket all over the place.

Anyway, there were some good 'valley view' points there, and we started clicking pics together.

Can you see the ocean behind?

(Tip to Honeymooners: Buy a tripod for your cam and take it along. We did. Helps a lot, later when telling others that both of you went on the trip, together)

Soon we were back in the vehicle, and went on a scenic route to a place called 'Ganga Talao'.

En route to Ganga Talao

There is a huggggeee statue of Lord Shiva on the way to Ganga Talao, towards the end.

Legend has it that Lord Shiva appeared in some saint's dreams and asked him to get water from the Ganges in India, and build a temple in Mauritius. And so he did at this place.

The actual temple near the pond looks like some kind of department store outside, with quite a few statues of different lords erected there.

Soon we were on another scenic route to some gorges and waterfalls.

And the last stop for the day was a place called "seven colored earth". It was a place with mounds of dark mud that was in different hues. Fine, it was interesting to the extent that I wouldn't have minded watching it on NatGeo or Discovery. But coming in person to see this was a huge disappointment. Seeing 'seven colored earth' on different posters and pamphlets, I had expected it to be something spectacular. But those guys hadn't lied. It was just that - seven colored earth. Nothing else. Nothing great.

Boy fishing inside Tortoise's mouth

Soon we were on our way back to the Hotel. One more scenic route.

Overhead irrigation systems are omnipresent at Mauritus

With quite a tiring day behind and ahead of us, we retired for the night after some time at the private beach at the Hotel.

Salaam Bombay

2009-05-13T10:22:00.000-07:00

A photo-post after a long time.

Long long ago, so long ago, that nobody remembers how long ago, I announced a contest, remember? The topic was street photography. I did get a lot of entries. But many participants had misunderstood the meaning of the term.

Street photography does not mean photographs of streets and roads. It refers to the freezing of routine life OR the out of the ordinary that one experiences in one's normal activities daily - on the streets.

Sounds too profound? Nothing much actually. This post comes with some samples of street photography from the streets of Mumbai..

1-up at IIMB: A review - II

2009-05-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

Moving on from people.

One major change IIMB brought in my life is in the area of time management and responsiveness. Earlier, I would never be able to think up something and execute it right away. I used to need quite a lot of time to ‘get mentally prepared’. But this changed at IIMB. One would hardly get time to ‘get comfy’ with stuff. Things always move at Top Gear. So I was forced to think on my feet, always. And by now, have got used to it. It’s no more painful for me to get into something right away. I do not feel unsure and inadequate as I used to earlier. One major learning I had at IIMB.

And in a related topic, I also learned to enjoy during and between work. In my life before IIMB, ‘fun time’ and ‘work time’ was very clearly defined and planned. I would never be able to enjoy my lunch if there was an EoD deliverable left unfinished. Even if I were on schedule, I would still feel insecure and would not really be able to have fun. But now, things have changed. At IIMB, the only fun you get is wedged between bouts of hard work. And I have got used to that way of life now. I can easily switch between work and fun at the sound of an email. I guess this is in preparation for the corporate life I have ahead of me. Am I thankful to IIMB for this! Else, my work-life balance would have gone for a toss.

One aspect of IIMB that every student would have to come to terms with is – you are not much. You may have so many achievements behind your name, but then so does everyone here. So what’s new with you? This is a heartless realization one has to come to terms with here, especially a brief period after joining, cos that is when all the adulation from the home frontiers would be at a peak. And if you peak today in a quiz, nothing guarantees that you won’t be the last guy on the mark list in the surprise quiz of tomorrow. Greatness is not perennial here – neither in space nor in time.

IIM life always comes with bizarre sleeping hours and durations. But it’s not mandatory, mind you. There are so many people I know who cannot stay up beyond 11 PM, and get their 8 hours every day. It is very possible on most days. Things are not as bad as they are purported. But there’s a catch to it :) YOU have to decide how you want things to be. Most people choose to stay up for long (12.30 AM – 2.00 AM is when the campus begins to slowly tuck in for the night). But that is cos they choose to spend a part of the day chatting / watching movies / playing computer games / etc. So if at all one is worried about the late hours one needs to put in, well, it’s not as bad as it seems from outside. There WILL be a few sleepless nights every month. But then that’s hardly anything to lose sleep over :P

So is everything hunky dory about IIMB? Is it the perfect abode on earth?

Obviously no. No place is perfect.

One depressing aspect of any IIM is that with competition being at sickening levels, and the stakes being perceived as terribly high, it is alarmingly easy for people to get their priorities skewed and become individualistic. It pains me (and many folks in here) when some brilliant intellectual starts behaving in a self-centered fashion. And that happens fairly often here. You can easily see through some folks who do everything with some hidden motives (which always target better placements). That is something I wish were different here. It is the bane at any IIM, but a bane alright. Not everyone is like this though. The majority gets its focus right very soon after joining. What I despise is a minority, mind you.

And this is the reason why I just *love* my section folks! The Dakoos are an awesome bunch of very helpful people who always think, work and act as a single entity. The entire class of 73 people feels like a gang that has similar tastes and preferences. There have been very few instances of individualism in Dakoo history, and am I proud as hell about that! Thank you, Dakoos! You are among my most favourite memories of first year life at IIMB!

This time of the year is when many lucky people with multiple IIM seats at hand scratch their heads wondering which IIM to go to. My 2 cents on this (much of it borrowed from Prahalad :) ): Where you end up after 2 yrs is not going to be very different between A, B and C. Placements are great at all these three institutions. So you might want to choose an insti that suits your attitude. In that sense, IIMB is for a consistent high-achiever who has huge dreams, but wants to reach there without compromising on something that actually matters in life – viz. life itself. Work as well as life here is intense.

On the whole, if I look back at my first year, one thing that makes me boundlessly proud is:

You go out.. Meet some people.. And tell them you are from IIMB.. and they take a second, closer look at you saying “Ohhhhhhhh”..

That’s when all the hardships seem worth it.

Vote for Sarath Babu!

2009-05-08T06:31:00.000-07:00

While on the one hand we constantly crib about the educated Indian isolating himself from the political process, silently a revolution seems to be taking place in India. Come every election, we find younger and younger people stepping into the arena. If last time it was the Lok Paritran, this time Foodking Sarath Babu is making heads turn with his brave decision.
Actually when my Mom SMSed me a month back saying that he was contesting the elections, my first reaction was "What the hell, isn't this too early for him?".
But in one sense, it's already too late! More people like him have to enter the fray.
Lok Paritran failed. And honestly speaking, Sarath also may not make much more than a few headlines here and there. But there is such a thing as a learning curve. As my dear friend Rathu puts it, people in future will learn from these experiences and some day educated youth will meet politicians eye-to-eye in the game of politics.
Lets lend all the support we can to this transformation.
Calling all South Chennai voters to express their support.
If you have not formed an opinion about this yet, take my word - Vote for Sarath Babu.
Also get your parents / friends / relatives to vote for the man. Think of all the times you convinced / forced / cajoled them into doing something in the past? Add one more to the list.

And most importantly:
Vote.
Or you wont matter.

- - - - - - - - - - Update - - - - - - - - - - -
South Chennai Election Results:
Total Votes: 7,26,329
Rajendran C (ADMK):3,08,567
Bharathy RS (DMK): 2,75,632
Gopinath V (DMDK): 67,291
Ganesan La (BJP): 42,925
Sarath Babu E: 14,101

5th out of around 50 candidates. 6th candidate had 2154 votes.

Decent performance, what?

Full results here.

1-up at IIMB: A review

2009-04-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

Had a good 10-day stay at home after my exams, and then came over to Mumbai. Had no access to internet in the past week, and hence this delay in hitting the blogosphere. Guess the next two months will offer me enough chances to blog (unless I get stuck to ‘Friends’ as I have been recently – I love this degree of joblessness!).

So I’ve lived through one year of IIMB life. Technically, it’s not a year yet, and will not be for two more months. But practically, I guess it is 1-up. Time for some retrospection, introspection and all that. With the junior batch making its choices now, I guess it’s only fair to put up a fairly detailed post on my thoughts on IIMB.

If I think of what I was feeling before I joined IIMB, two major emotions spring up right away:

1. Awe

2. Fear

Now I seem to have lost both :)

I guess it’s natural that one loses awe of something he/she is involved in. Familiarity doth breed un-awe, am not so sure about contempt.

As for fear, I realized very soon after landing here that it was uncalled for. My fear was about the kind of competition here, whether I would be able to survive, whether I would be able to participate in club activities, take up some leadership post, etc. In hindsight, I have been able to do stuff here. My fear earlier arose from a kind of ‘halo’ that I attributed to my would-be peers here. Now that halo’s gone :D

Not to say that my peers here are not noteworthy. Farthest from it. They’re awesome people to be with. Never before have I seen such a concentration of high-octane folks in the same place. Things happen here without much follow-up (more often than not) when compared to the outside world. And they happen with a great degree of quality. People deliver what they promise. I sure think they deserve all the numbers that make up their pay check. Ability-wise, I salute IIMB folks!

But I realized that what makes these people tick is not extreme levels of intellect. Many people here do have that. But what sets my peers apart from the rest is that they are EXTREMELY common-sensical. Everything else follows through. This is the single most important factor I could identify in people. There are other things like ability to work hard, lofty aspirations, great achievements in the past, and so on. But this is the basic unifying factor among the people I see here.

Once I realized this, I got more comfortable with the people here.

And ya.. Most IIMB students are all-rounders with multi-faceted capacities all round the place. Proof: Check the results of all inter-IIM sports meets of the past few years. IIMB has proven undefeat-able! Guess this follows from the selection procedure of the insti – the filtering criteria make sure only the academically consistent are filtered in, and the interview process picks the more well-rounded ones from them. On the whole, what we have here is a set of people who have achieved lots in multiple areas.

While on the topic of people, there are two other categories one would want to think about.

Firstly, the Professors. THEY make the institution, let me tell you. You may go thru the faculty profiles, and you’ll find lots and lots of Profs who are currently defining the policies of the country at the highest levels! Also those who sit on the boards of the Fortune-x00 companies. I consider it a privilege to learn stuff from these people. Especially, I would like to thank Prof. Shyamal Roy for demystifying economics for us all. Considering his degree of involvement in the field (World bank advisor), it’s surprising that he dumbed the subject down to our level. Thanks to him, now I can read a business newspaper without cringing at the abbreviations and their meanings. And Padmini ma'am made half-CAs out of us science & tech grads.

There are quite a few more people like them, who adorn the faculty list at IIMB. Ya, there are a few “bad eggs” too. But they again are (mostly) very knowledgeable people who may just not be able to teach things in the best way. One would get at least one such Prof per term. But one also gets at least one stud-level Prof every term. Fair enough? :)

The other category of people one would be able to meet at IIMB are the industry leaders who come over for guest lectures. In the past year, I have had the opportunity of listening to people like Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Air Deccan Capt Gopinath, Subroto Bagchi (MindTree), R Srinivasan (ITC), James Abraham (BCG), Narayan Ramachandran (Morgan Stanley), Gurcharan Das, Rajiv Chandrashekar, Shekhar Gupta, Vinay Tewari and so on. These are people who are defining the current Business World. Getting to meet them in an academic environ is very enlightening.

This post was only about the people here. Got lots more to say, but the post seems to be bloating up too much. So, rest in the next.

Revival of AbsoluteGyan

2009-03-18T22:37:00.000-07:00

My other blog was hybernating for a year and a half. Now, I am on a drive to revive that. Planning to put up notes from the various talks of business leaders that I would be attending here at IIMB. (Have already put a post on the essentials of Venture Capital funding)

Now, have started a series on the basics of digital photography. A series that would aim to take amateurs to the doors of serious photography. Hope I'd get enough time during summers to take this series to its logical end. If I don't conclude it during the summer, I may never :)

Do visit http://absolutegyan.blogspot.com/!

New Public Interest Ads

2009-03-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

Of late quite a few public interest ads have caught my attention. The ones by PCRA are great. ("20% discount on petrol/LPG"). Very striking ads that make one realize the impact of energy prudence at the individual level.
The best of these ads is the one in which a kid is sitting with his Dad in a car, looking around at all the energy that is going waste as vehicle exhaust at a traffic signal. Suddenly his face lights up and he says "Ahhh!! A cycle repair shop!". His father quizzes him about his exclamation. The kid replies, "A cycle repair shop! That is what I will open once I grow up. Looking at what people are doing now, am sure we'll lose all petrol very soon. After that people will have to get back to cycles".
Lovely ad! Captures the stark realities of today's world in the garb of the enlightened innocence of a child.
What is surprising is that these ads have a good visual clarity/quality. A far cry from the blurry, pale frames that characterized public interest ads of the type that used to appear on Doordarshan :D

A trip to the land of the blues - II

2009-03-09T12:27:00.000-07:00

Trip to Mauritius: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

We exited the airport and got into our vehicle – a van that was supposed to mass transport many others along with us to our respective hotels. For a moment I overheard the driver say something to a group of drivers standing outside, and I had to really control my laughter with colossal efforts. I am quoting the driver verbatim here: “Aaiii gayyeee Yaaai gaaai yaaai aaai” (please ignore spelling errors, if any). It sounded like he was trying to say some word unsuccessfully and was starting all over each time. For hundred times. I immediately thought I should write to Russell Peters asking him to come over here and try picking this language up.

And then I decided, maybe not.

Cos he will again start picking up on Indians.

Cos this place is overloaded with Indians. Not just people, even our symbols like the LIC, Indian Oil and State Bank of India have sneaked into this tiny little son-of-an-island!

Firstly the airport itself is called ‘Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Airport’. (The first time I read the name, It took a while for me to realize that it’s Indian. These Mauritians love to make our names less recognizable!). This was something I had experienced once even before the trip. The moment we decided that Mauritius was where we would go to, I immediately launched myself into extensive secondary data research (checked Wikipedia). It was then that I got to know that Sir Anerood Jugnauth is the President and Navin Ramgoolam, the PM of this country. That being my first encounter with Indian-names-twisted-with-glee-by-Mauritians (and I didn’t know it then), it took me half a dozen attempts to read out the names properly, and once I had accomplished that I felt like a fool – it was all as Indian as I am! And I took so much time! (I hope you did too, now).

Ok then, so the point is that Indian names are pretty common here. And I spotted things like temples (with proper South Indian styled gopurams), cars that dot the Indian landscape (All Maruti / Hyundai models, exactly as they are in India. Just that Santro is called ‘Atos’. Small island na.. they had to take measures to handle the space constraints). And then saw posters of ‘Ghajini’ and ‘Rab ne bana di jodi’ stuck everywhere.

A bus stop

In all, I guess Mauritius is actually an Indian island that has just abused its license to continental drift.

Anyway, we reached our Hotel (Hotel Legends, Grand Gaube) in about an hour and a half (in which time we had REALLY travelled the entire length of the country. Mother promise). The drive was sooooo scenic on either side that I stopped clicking pics after a while. Had gotten used to being in paradise soon :)

The drive reminded me of umpteen WinXP wallpapers

The reception was very cordial, and the ambience, very elegant. The attendants spoke and smiled with so much warmth, I almost asked them “Have we met before?”. They gave us our welcome drinks and asked us to be seated while they got our chef for us.

Pretty soon he turned up. “Hi. I am your chef and will be managing your menu during your stay here. My name is Ruben. And I have another name.”

Reminded me of “En paeru Manikkam.. enakku innoru paerum irukku”.

I probed him to say that name and he said “You won’t understand, it’s too long.” I said I didn’t mind cos I was anyway on holiday and could spend a few minutes hearing him say his name out.

Ruben sounded pretty Christian, and so I expected something along the lines of Francis Xavier Don Bosco Michael Patrick Santhome Bede. But he said “Gopalakrishnan Muthuswamy”.

That was a stunner. And I really thought he was kidding; maybe he knew we were from South India and maybe he wanted to flaunt his knowledge of India(n names). I exclaimed “You must be kidding”.

He smiled and handed his card over.

And I was right. His name wasn’t Gopalakrishnan Muthuswamy.

It was Gopalakrishnan Moothooswamy.

Muthusamy Karuppiah, anyone?

As I felt later, one astounding thing at Mauritius is that the Indians there have maintained our culture, our naming customs, and our worshipping rituals. But strangely, they do not seem to be very convenient with the language. At least the Tamilians there. While the Northies did speak some form of Hindi or Bhojpuri, the Tams there were not too conversant in their language. I found that kinda surprising.

Anyway, we were given a message that had arrived from our tour operator which said she would like to meet us at 02.30 PM to discuss our tour details. That gave us just enough time to change and head over to her office.

The room... No bathrooms.. Only glamourooms :)

The backdoor of the room opened towards the ocean

I heaved a sigh of relief as we entered her office at 2.30 sharp – I hate not keeping time (not that I’m good at it. I just hate it, that’s all). Then we found that the plans we had made with SOTC here in India had not been communicated well to them. That was very depressing considering the amount of time we had put into the planning. Anyway, we fought for a while and finalised our sightseeing plans for the oncoming week. It was 4 by then, and we had half an hour before a campus tour that would brief us on the facilities available at the hotel (and more importantly, the ones that were free). That gave us just enough time to pick up some food – we hadn’t lunched at all! We had a couple of pancakes with honey by the pool side at the Grand Blue – the main bar of the hotel. (The way they pronounced the name I would have thought it was spelt Graaa(n) Bleeeu had I not seen the board). It was 4.30 by then and we went over to the reception for the tour and were surprised to find that it was already halfway through. Then we had a small briefing by the guest relations officer, after which we trudged to our room and had a great sleep for a few hours. Very refreshing after 24 hours of tiring moving around.

We woke up at around 9 or 10, and went to the browsing center (consisting of 2 computers) and sent a couple of mails to people back home. Then we went to the main restaurant (Gingko) for dinner.

That was when I got a sneak preview of how difficult food was going to be over the next week. While I understood not a single word on the menu, my taste buds didn’t understand the food itself either. There was a lone saviour on offer – something we could relate to (but not pronounce). When we ordered for a second serving, the bearer looked at us as if we were weird people, and proceeded to serve the dish after a long time. We thought that was a bit rude, but brushed it aside thinking maybe it was impolite to ask for second helpings at Mauritius.

Soon dinner was done. The clear sky drew us into star gazing from the beach lying on our backs in the comfortable furniture. The more we saw into the deep, dark sky, with the silent presence of the Indian Ocean a few feet away from us, the more insignificant we felt in the larger scheme of things.

Pretty soon we headed to our room. And I discovered that toilets there did not have water in any form (except within the commode), not even health faucets.

Now am contemplating having one of the following contests on VT.com:

a) Listing everything one can do with a 1-litter .. 1-litre Aquafina bottle

b) Whether one has ever washed after potty with exactly 1-litre of water

Anyway, the day was pretty much at a close. After setting my alarm for the next day, I dropped on the bed. The missus asked me to set a wakeup call at the reception. It kinda hurt my male ego (and my laziness) to move along and make a call to the reception. I assured her that my phone had a good enough alarm.

And we delved into one more round of deep sleep.

Until my next, it’s Vishwnauth signing off!

Aero India 2009 at Bangalore

2009-02-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

The first ever time I witnessed an Air Show was in Chennai 2 years back. As lakhs assembled at the unending stretch of Marina, fighter planes flew in from the Tambaram base and exhibited their skills. I felt elated after that show - what an exhibition of power it was!

So this time when the once-in-2-years Air Show happened in Bangalore, I made it a point to pay a visit.

The show began with a huge monster of a plane taking off at exactly 2.30 PM - the scheduled time.
The gray colored thing bearing the inscription "US Air Force" was the size of a regular commercial plane, but was extremely agile. The sharp take-off and mid-air turns were incredible, given the size of the plane.

But for the sharp turns, there wasn't much that this plane had on offer. But it was impressive in itself.

Once this plane landed, up went a cute little thing. But the noise it made, and the speeds it achieved were totally un-cute! It was a major fight for me to catch that little thing within my frame - it was too quick to follow! But barely managed a couple of clicks.

Next followed a model that was much bigger in size, but quite agile and acrobatic. It was a majestic sight to see its bright colors against the bluish-gray sky.

A vertical climb, followed by free fall!

Another vertical climb

What followed was a white colored small plane-let, if I may say so. The pilot did pull off a lot of stunning stunts, but the size and capacity of the plane was not very impressive. The propeller at front only added to the indifference that people were showering on this little flying thingee.

I personally think this was just to keep us busy while something spectacular was getting ready - The Suryakiran Team!

The team ganging up...

...zooming in...

and swinging into action, right away!

'O' poduraangappa!

Among the best aerobatics teams in the world, Suryakiran did not fail this time either.

The 'T' formation, meaning "Thank you for coming"

The Suryakiran team disbanding - my favo display!

Pretty soon, the Saarang team of Helicopters climbed up into the sky. Unlike planes, helicopters are extremely tough to control. They take some time to respond. But the team made it seem like child's play!

The diamond formation

The final performance was by the Akash Ganga team of sky divers.

With that, the show came to a close. And we started walking towards the exit.

An array of aircrafts that were kept on exhibit

Couldn't resist :)

Air shows invariably leave one feeling damn bloody proud of one's own country :)

Ulaga Naayaganae!

2009-02-23T00:39:00.000-08:00

As a rule, I generally avoid writing on stuff that everyone talks about. There are eleventy-eleven thousand blogs around the world, and all bloggers have views on everything contemporary. These days, owning a blog is equivalent to having views.

But am giving myself a concession this one time. This post is all about A R Rahman.

Earlier I used to think it was my own idiosyncrasy, but learnt sometime back that almost everyone feels this - A R Rahman is like someone you know so closely well. It's like he is a personal friend. And most people from my peer group feel this way. It's like everyone feels a sense of 'ownership' over him. It could be cos' of his Herculean modesty.

Or may also be cos he 'grew' with us.

I remember the day he won the National Award for Roja. Rather, the day the awards function was held and telecast on Doordarshan. I had spent just more than half-a-dozen years on earth then. But the diminutive kid who scored the music for Roja caught my fancy right then. Notwithstanding the high fever I was running then, I rushed to my cousin's house in Tirupattur to watch the show.

Just a couple of more years in Kollywood.. and he rose to stardom in Tamil Nadu.

And that was when Rangeela happened. I remember the trailers that were aired on DD Metro. They bore the words "A R Rahman's first original score in Hindi". And thus began Rahman's foray into the national scene. A few years hence 1997 happened. Vande Mataram happened. And Rahman became a son of India.

That was a problem of sorts for Tams. Cos he had to start sharing his time between Tamil and Hindi movies :( Anyway, that brought about a wave of awareness about Bollywood in the south. People in TN started singing Hindi songs to an unprecedented level (after Aradhana). And vice versa too - all my peers at IIMB from the north love Boys songs ("Woh girlfriend waali gaana..").

A few years went on like that, and Andrew Lloyd Webber (& Bombay Dreams) happened, signalling Rahman's entry into the global scene. Pride on one side, and jealousy on the other side, pulled me apart then. While happy that Rahman was making us all proud, I was upset that we would be hearing even lesser of him in Kollywood.

Anyway, I put up with that too. Kid can be given some freedom to move around on his own.

And now, Slumdog has happened. Sigh :(

Well yeah.. It's great that he (among others) is getting the world to look at us.

But I would have been much happier had this happened for one of his actually good movies. I found the music of Slumdog pretty average-ish, considering that it was from Rahman. (The O Saya bit is definitely haunting. But howmuch ever I listen to Jai Ho, I always end up finding it inadequate.)

Anyway, this is no time to crib. Namma paya gelichurukaan.. takkar matteru baa!

(Again going tangential, don't you think Rahman and Sachin have some uncanny resemblance? Behaviour, Stature - physical and otherwise, et al?)

A trip to the land of the blues - I

2009-02-04T19:48:00.000-08:00

Trip to Mauritius: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Heyyy VishfulThinkers!

Me back after a really long hiatus. So much has happened in this period – much of it being what I would have wanted to write about. But it’s really too much to recollect and pen down now. So will stop with the most exciting experience of them all: My trip to Mauritius! My first ever journey beyond the boundaries of India.

Though it was meant to be a honeymoon, I refuse to use the word cos’ it was more like an adventure trip.

On Dec 28, the Misuss and I embarked from Bangalore. Our journey to Mauritius was through Dubai. Ya, it was a whole lot like “turning your ears and touching your nose” in a loose translation from Tamil. But that was the only route on which tickets were available for us. Enjoyed the Emirates Airbus 330 flight. Watched Lage Raho Munna Bhai and Jab We Met put together on the way. But only that the poorly made concoction was called Kismet Konnection.

Once at Dubai, we spent a good 4 hours walking around one terminal of the huuuuuuuuuuuuuge airport (There were gates numbered in the 300s! I think Chennai has around 10), ogling at the Duty Free shops and the BMWs and Benzes kept on display there, and walking up and down the travelator there.

Phew :(

Travelators

(like escalators, only that these replace walking, rather than climbing)

They have prayer rooms in the airport!

Wonder what kind of such 'special' rooms we could have in our airports?

Then after catching a couple of hours of fitful sleep in an easy-chair of sorts, we finally got called to board the Boeing 777 flight to Mauritius. The flight started on the dot at 0235 hours. And my joy knew no bounds as I discovered that the in-flight entertainment collection had 260+ movies and numerous TV series. I got sooooo excited that I fell asleep at once. The 6 hour flight passed rather uneventfully. I woke up towards the end of the flight and peered out of the window. And was dumbstruck!

This is what I saw:

Can you spot the ocean below the clouds?

Look for the shadows of the clouds and waves in the water - bottom right

There was an unending expanse of this lavish splash of cool blue all around. The very sight was so refreshing. It was kinda scary too, to be hanging in the air somewhere above a vast ocean – more than two decades of relationships with terra firma have kinda spoilt me in that sense.

I woke up the Missus and pointed this out to her. Sleepily she fished her cam out of her bag and showed me this pic, in a manner of saying “How about this? I clicked this a couple of hours back”:

Clearly this was even more striking. But how could I not have the last word?

So I said “awesome”.

After ogling out of the window for a while, I turned on the TV in front of my seat. And I got the best in-flight entertainment I have ever got in life on board international flights (he he.. Technically this is true ;) ). There were a couple of channels that showed what it is to sit in the cockpit! There was a live feed from cameras placed below the nose of the plane, and it was very exciting to look at so many clouds pass by at breakneck speed.

Gradually we left the ocean behind and began flying over landmass. Pretty soon we reached the airport.

And what a sight it was!

A very quaint little airport flanked by green hills on one side and the deep blue ocean on the other. Has to be seen to be believed!

And do you know why Pilots get paid bucket-loads?

Cos you need to put up with 300+ back seat drivers. The very camera that was giving me thrills a few mins back, started giving me scares. The way the flight was going, I did not for a moment feel that the pilot was flying it in line with the runway that was closing in soon. I almost made a dash to the cockpit to turn the steering stick a bit to the left (what the heck.. it was so obvious from that cam). Somehow in a last minute manoeuvre the pilot made sure we landed on track.

And the moment the rubber hit the tarmac, it seemed like the entire crew of the aircraft had mounted itself on the brakes. The drop in speed was a bit too harsh. And then I realized why.

Remember I said it was a quaint little airport? I meant it in all senses.

If the pilot had taken time to say “Hiya Mauritius.. Here I come” before applying the brakes after landing, he would have had to say “Hiya Indian Ocean.. Here I already am” at once. The runway was toooooooooooooo short. The flight went right up to the end of the runway before taking a U-turn and slowly taking its rightful place near the exit.

The moment planes take-off, they are already above the ocean

(Pic unclear, taken thru glass)

In a few minutes, we had made our way to the visitors’ hall where we had to get our visas from one of the 20 counters. It was so bloody crowded that Ranganathan Street appeared in my inner eye for a split second.

Anyway, the formalities were done in half an hour, and we made our way out of the airport.

(Ok I do know I have not conveyed much in this post, nor are there any good pics worth a mention. But I HAD to post this, cos my good friend Toin asked me yesterday "What happened to your blog? No posts after marriage? Understandable. No more original thinking na?". So I had to undertake immediate damage control in the form of this post. Next post onwards I'll have lots to tell you :) Cheers!)

A journey to far-away land - Part II (Memories of Tirupattur)

2008-12-21T01:08:00.001-08:00

(Continued from here)

Tirupattur is a quaint little town in Vellore district. My paternal ancestors moved in there a couple of generations back, and carved out a reputation and a couple of blocks of roads for themselves. Half my holidays during childhood were spent at this place that gave me wonderful experiences of life in the countryside. And I just loved it!

My grandpa had 7 kids - 3 sons and 4 daughters in that order. And all those 'kids' spawned families of 4 or 5 members each. Each one of these families was in a different place - Chennai / Bangalore / Hyderabad / Ramanagaram / Vellore / Tirupattur itself. But during hols, most of us would gather at 23, Pillayar Koil Street, Extension, Tirupattur (N.A Dist) - 635601.

The house was one of those typical ones you see in the movies - a fairly big, tiled house. The main gate led to an open area covered with a pandhal. Three steps directed one to a heavy wooden door flanked on either side with some seating space (thinnai). Grandpa's easy-chair was located here, and this is where he would lie down comfortably when someone came to meet him. Evenings saw the arrival of cows for milking here. The main door opened into the hall - or the 'fan room' as it was called in the household. Maybe it was the first room that was fitted with a fan. Dunno. Crossing over from the fan room, one would enter a corridor that went around a yard right in the middle. There were a few rooms lined up along the corridor (bada room, store room, chota room). The yard was covered on top with some grills and housed a Tulasi mutt that had an integral role in Grandma's pooja plans.

Our farmlands were about 3 kms from our house. Every morning, it would take loads of efforts from all the parents to coax us to have a bath in the house. We guys would tie towels on our heads and get ready to go to our farm for swimming. More often than not, we would keep roaming about that way for a couple of hours before resorting to a 2 minute bath in our house itself (Hunger!). But Balaji (my closest cousin there) and I would visit the farms at least once in 2 - 3 days and soak lazily in the water. It used to be an amazing feeling - with the sun beating down from the top, and the water keepin one's lower latitudes ultra cool, and a pleasant green cover all around.

I guess you know how hungry one gets after swimming in the sun for some time. So, whenever we went to our farm, as soon as we jumped into the pool the workers there would go and get us Parle G biscuits and "cool drinks" (Live - O / Love - O / Love One or pure simple color soda). And yeah, all this apart from the numerous tender coconuts! Live was heavenly. I (barely into my teens) would order around 30 and 40 year olds who would oblige with pleasure! (They used to call me "manager" after my father's designation at office).

At the peak in summers, the house would swarm with 33 people. 2 grandparents, 14 uncles/aunts/parents, 17 cousins - all under one roof!! At no point would the house be quiet. And if you count all our relatives living in the same street or the next, definitely the number would rise to a couple of hundreds.

My Grandpa was a very friendly, easy-to-go-with man. At the age of 78 he would come and play cricket with us! Just for a couple of overs. But still, at 78! He was physically very able - he could move a 4 ft big drum full of water without any help! And he always made sure people around him were very happy.

He had his own ways of doing it. Dad often talks of how after the results of exams came out, my Grandpa would go from house to house and reward every child with an amount equal to his rank in class! Those who used to fail in exams had the last laugh :D

All this until 10 years back.

In March 1998 my Grandpa breathed last.

Cancer ate him away.

It was a pitiable sight to look at the man waste away within half a year to such an extent that he wasn't able to turn around in his bed without help. So much that when he died, we felt a bit relieved that he didn't have to suffer any longer.

My sister's 10th standard results came out 2 weeks later. She had come school first. Had my Grandpa been alive, he would have relished the news and spread it around in a jiffy throughout the town!

Tough luck.

The very next year, when I went to Tirupattur for hols, there were just 2 of us - my Granny and myself.

It was initially exciting. The thought of having the house all for myself was just so fulfilling. Or so I thought. Just a couple of days later, I began to feel bored. The house seemed unusually huge... the life was just not there. And I spent hours everyday watching TV - the one that had been bought when Grandpa was in bed to keep him engaged. That was sort of the last nail in the coffin. For more than a decade, we had never realized the absence of a TV in the house. And now?

From then on, all my stays there were largely alone. The next time the entire house was in full strength was in April 2002 - when my Granny died. Now officially it was all over. Her death seemed to signify the end of my trips to Tirupattur. The whole house seemed distant and remote. As if it belonged to somebody else. As if I was just a visitor.

One month after her death, my class 12 results came out and I had topped the state.

Tough luck, again.

It's been 6 long years after that when I have visited Tirupattur hardly 4 - 5 times; nothing worth a mention. What made matters worse was that each time I went there recently with fond memories of the crowded past, I was greeted by the chilly solitude of the present. Kids have all grown up, and elders have grown older. I do not know whether it was the innocence of childhood, but I somehow feel people were happier 10 years back than they are now. And that is so damn inconsistent with my image of Tirupattur.

Why do we have to grow up?!

A journey to far-away land

2008-12-09T04:46:00.000-08:00

It was 01:20. That meant 10 more minutes for the scheduled end of the class. But our Quantitative Methods sir decided to end the class then and there. I heaved a sigh of relief. My train to Chennai was at 02:30 and I needed to leave the campus as soon as I could. 10 mins was a lot of time then.

But the moment the Prof signalled the end of the session, the whole class began shouting “Last class as bachelor for Vishwaaaaaaa!”. And Muru screamed “Please advise him, Sir!”.

In his characteristic style, DinKu sir quoted a one-liner: “Love is blind. But marriage is an eye-opener. You will learn it soon.”

Then with a little prodding from Sir, the class started looking for someone to sing some song for me. A few arbit leg-pulls later, Abhilash stood up. As is his wont, he began by saying “On behalf of section D, let me sing a song for you”. Sportively, he then rendered a few lines of nalam vaazha ennaalum en vaazhthukkal. Felt great to listen to that!

Half an hour, and an auto fight later, I was seated in Brindavan Express wondering about the past few weeks. So much had happened in my life. I had got through Mahindra & Mahindra for a group management role – an assignment I am really excited about.

And my marriage was fixed.

I had fixed the bride a long time back, but the wedding itself was finalized the day after I got placed. And the muhurth was just 3 weeks away! That meant near zilch time for all preps, and so both the households spurred into action. And here I was at IIMB... Far away from all the action. From all the excitement. As people at home discussed invitation lists and travel plans, I was worrying myself about assignments and submissions that would mean nothing in the larger scheme of things for me!

And it was largely that. The only thing I did for my own marriage was – inviting my friends. That exhausts most of the efforts I took for this big moment of mine. So naturally I was missing the zing in my consciousness that one would normally associate with such an event in one’s own life.

Until last Saturday.

That was when my friends organized a surprise bachelor’s party for me! I had absolutely no clue about it until a few minutes before I was taken to the venue. And it felt grrrrrrrrrrreat! The moment I reached G-top – our standard venue for parties – the whole group erupted into loud cheers. And scared the hell out of me! The crowd was much bigger than it normally was, and that was reason enough for me to feel great. The proceedings began the playing of a video that my friends had shot for me – allllllll girls of my class said things to me on the video that I could not publish here simply cos Mom frequents this space. Ok the video was scripted and staged. So what! Not many know that na ;) Muru, NT, Vineet and Das led the class in doing so much – the first few moments when the thought that I was getting married actually sunk in.

It was 4.30 AM when Pehla Nasha was played to signal the end of the revelry. The crowd had thinned, but my excitement had not.

Cut to the present.

Seated in the Brindavan, I was wondering about how fast the past few weeks had gone by. As I marvelled at that, a couple of guys rushed into the compartment and looked around, calling out to someone outside “All seats till 32 are ours”.

Mine was 36. And that meant I was right in the thick of the action. A huge group of people of all shapes, ages and sizes started filing in. One look at them would tell anyone that it was a marriage gumbal. As the bride stood outside the coach bidding adieu to everything and everybody she had known over the 20+ years of her being, I couldn’t help but think that this scene was just a few days away in my own life.

Pretty soon the train started moving and I got immersed in my laptop. An hour later I began watching Dasvidaniya. When the movie came to the part where Vinay Pathak visits his childhood crush Neha and they begin discussing memories, I suddenly got a whiff of a fragrance that took me back to my own childhood in a jiffy. It made me take a reflex peek outside the window. And spot the broad expanse of the Yelagiri Hills.

That meant Jolarpet.

That meant Tirupattur – my native place. The Tirupattur that I used to visit once in 3 – 6 months when I was a kid. The Tirupattur where 32 of us would reside under a single roof during the summer holidays. The Tirupattur where the absence of a TV at home meant absolutely nothing to any of us kids. The Tirupattur where there were dozens of relatives living literally a stone’s throw away.

The Tirupattur that I had not visited for years now.

Continued here

The Countdown...

2008-12-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

01-Dec
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02-Dec
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03-Dec
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04-Dec
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05-Dec
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06-Dec

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07-Dec
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:)

08-Dec

Placed!

2008-11-13T07:36:00.000-08:00

More details later!