Birthday!

Finally, the long awaited day for my roomies and junta here had come on April 26. Guess, since months together, they'd have been waiting to give those 'b'day bumps and bashes'. And they didnt disappoint me or themselves either.

25 April 2006, 11.45 pm.
Woke up suddenly from the disturbance with the not so-regular hulla in the house. More than a dozen had gathered and then started the party with the cake they had brought. Post the cake cut ceremony, left overs were smeared on my face followed by the b'day bumps. A card with an indigenious poem (courtesy:Saravanan) was duly presented along with the gift. Next phone calls from Thyagesh, J.P et. al made the eve more spicier!

26 April
Went to Phool Bagaan Mandir in the morning. Morning was vibrant with many phone wishes and had gone to office. Evening when I reached home, I was surprised to get a sweet box from Raunak, the 8 year old cutie lad who happens to be our house-owner's son. Attached above is the pic of the box .

How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life

The second news article that me made me stunned is about our own desi girl - Kaavya Viswanathan. This 19 something Harvard lass made a fortune of about 2,80,000 pounds (about $5,00,000!) which was paid as an advance for her book "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life".

Opal Mehta, which has a first printing of 100,000 copies, has been optioned by the publisher DreamWorks.. And more info, Spielberg's is gonna make a movie on her story!

Here are the News articles 1 & 2

Excerpts from the Book (Holding to place my hands on the actual copy!)

Pramod Mahajan Episode

Today morning began as usual like any sunday. Read the first of page of Times of India in half sleep in the bed and was shook by the headline that Pramod Mahajan, BJP leader was shot thrice by a .32 pistol by his own brother. I wasnt aware of the news which took place yesterday and went in for the details. Grabbed the remote and surfing across news channels gave a big picture, the regular media hype as it would always happen be to this National Top story. Newsmakers gave an ample news for the news channels to make and cook stories.

The Hindu news article on this

Wud be back-to-blog soon !

If at all, any one who happens to read my blog, I am sorry I couldnt post anything for a big gap. Due to some personal commitments, I couldnt make it to active Blogging for quite some time. But, I'll be back soon...Very soon..
PS: Would be really happy or rather extremely flattered if anyone has had felt my absence to Blog!

A Day of Meetings !

22 March 2006, Wednesday

Morning:
Woke up by around 9 am after a long chat with Bala previous night.
Bala's roomie Ranjit also got into the same project as Bala. He gave good company in sleeping and later we moved to their Vadapalani Office. Met Sri Ram, long time buddy after a long time and had a big chat over a couple of dosa's and tea in the canteen (huh, is that we call breakfast meeting!). This followed with another hour- long-gossip with Priya over a cup of coffee in the same canteen. In between, met and talked with lots of old and familiar faces.

Noon:
Next, I was off to TCS - Ambattur. There I met all the junta - Swami, Geetha, Vanadi, Radhika, Yamini et. al at one go, over lunch. Post lunch, we went for a long walk-the-talk in their walky area. Then, talked with Divya who was in the Velachery office.

Evening:
Back to Vadapalani. Met lakku and Sathish(Anna Univ guy), had coffee and chat. Unexpectedly met this guy Manjeshwara who came from Kolkata to Chennai on transfer. Then Bala and Ram came, and we hopped in to the Nair-kadai-chai! Next, Bala and me started to Udayam theatre to check any latest movie and unfortunately it didnt get materialised ;-( Then, we decided to go for shopping and went to a mall over there, where I got few clothes. As we were about to start to Koyambedu, we met long time PSG Telugu friends.

Night:
Straight, we headed towards their apartment. Met Satya, KP, Srikant, Ravi there. It was nice to get back with Satya - the most happening guy around. He was not ready to leave me out and KP started preparing dinner. Few minutes and wah, it was delicious mamu! Mukunth called in between and had a bada talk with him too. It was almost 10 when I left their place and prepared to start for Velachery to see my CTS classmates, who had called me their for dinner. Anyways, even at this time, I was determined and I left to Velachery. In another hour, I was there meeting Prasanna, D. Ma, R.Ma, Kums, Jaggu and Srikanth, all at one place! Mani fondly showed his i-pod and it was a great feel-good-feeling after seeing them all. Talked with Pallu over D.Ma's fone and had lots of fun. At 12, we called Sam to wish him for his b'day.

Really, it was a big day.. No..No.. I should say a LONG day !!!

SIMPLIFLY !

New 180 seater Airbus
Plush Interiors
Leather Upholstery
More leg space (comparatively)
Charming cabin crew
Adhered to time schedule (thankfully, this time I hadnt had any bitter experiences as last time)
And more importantly, safe landing and take off with no jhan-jhats!


Well, I am not talking about any International Airline or so. Its Apna very own Air- Deccan, the no frills- low cost airline. Yesterday I came to Chennai from Kolkata by A.D's evening flight. Unlike my friends and my own past experience, this time there was no cancelaltion or delay in the flight. Also, I was lucky indeed to avail the above-said all 'configuration', which is very rare indeed! The carrier took take-off around 20 mins late as the run-way was being used by another aircraft at that time. Still we managed to reach Chennai just 10 mins after scheduled arrival time and this by any means is excusable.

Overall, it was an absolute No- compliant travel!

HOPE !!!

HOPE -- The four letter word on which the world runs. Donno, how many agree to this ;-) HOPE is the ray of life and the sole phenomenon for anyone's survival. It is THE word which differentiates mere existing and living.

To put it in my own way, mathematically, HOPE is the probabilty of the outcome of any event. Subconsciously, hope does co-exist amongst all of us. Think of this situation, its 8 pm now and what will happen, if tomorrow, there is no morning. To put in another words, if there is no tomorrow. Weird, but now its clear that IT is the 'hope- factor' which makes us believe that there is a 'tomorrow'. Similarly, on any outcome anywhere, hope is subconsciously hidden or embedded inside!

Hey, come on and lemme come to the root of this post. Dont start imagining that I am going wayward philosophical or a bit eccentric kind. Since noon, I am waiting for a particular result which are to be out today and till now there are no signs of it. I've been opening that result-site window for the n+1 th time (n value not sure, should be more than 25 atleast) only hoping that this time it'd come... It'd come... Alas, it never came :) At last, I got the message that the results are delayed and they would come tomorrow. The whole sambhav intrigued me to write something on 'hope'. Ha ha, so goes my background..

One more incident happened yesterday. One of my friends lost her mobile phone during lunch somewhere in the office. Realising it after a couple of hours and after a few initial attempts at tracing, she lost the hope of getting it back. In her own words, she didnt even have 1% hope on getting it back! But it was found later (thanks to Apna company's security) . Hope, indeed retained its glory with a postive outcome ;-)

Hope - the strength as well as the excuse to live..True, Hope propels the world with its dear men and women!

Shanti Niketan Trip

I intend to put in 2 parts, the 'first' abt the 'planning' part and the second about the 'executing' part -- trip actually ;D

Part I
The following is a copy of the letter that I circulated among our group before leaving to the Shanti Niketan visit. Ha ha, see how formal it looks ;-)

Friends:
The long awaited Shanti Niketan outing has finally materialised!
This is to inform you all the details, venue and plan of ShantiNiketan tour:

1. Information:
Shanti Niketan seems to be special during this time (holi) with its 'basant-utsav' and is a must-see place for us.
visit
http://www.theholidayspot.com/holi/vasanta_utsav.htm
http://www.indiatravelogue.com/dest/wben/wben1.html for the place details.

2. How to reach?
Shanti Niketan is around 3 hrs from here, reachable by road and bus. Direct train leaves from Howrah junction at specified timings. Alternativley, it can be reached through Burdwan, which has frequent electric train connectivity from Howrah junction. From Burdwan, there are lots of buses available to reach Bholpur, ~ 50 kms from Burdwan (fyi, Bholpur is the name of the station for Shanti Niketan). We'll go for the second option.

3. When and where to start from ?
Tomorrow (14 March) morning by around 6.30 am from Karunamoyee.
Meeting point : Place near the Shuttle stand

4. Cash required?
Around: Rs. 300 to 500 (plus extra whatever you want)

5. Things to be got:
(a) Have an extra pair of clothes as you may bound to get coloured duirng 'Holi' Celebrations. I'd suggest you to wear washable, non expensive wear.
(b) Towel
(c) Water bottles (with water, of course!)
(d) Snacks, if possible


Part II

Realising that, it'd be too late if we start by the said time, the eight- some gang of ours agreed to assemble at the starting point at 5 am in order to board the 6' o clock direct train at Sealdah Station. As it always happens, it was around 5.40 when we all gathered ;-) We were left with the only option to go to Howrah and get the Burdwan local. Next straight, we stuffed, squeezed and sandwiched ourselves fully int0 the taxi and went seedha to Howdah. Burdwan local was delayed and our journey started by 7 am. Guess, this is the first group outing at such an early hour! In a couple of hours, we were at Burdwan and from there we boarded another train to Bolpur (ShantiNiketan). By 12 noon we were there.

It was Holi...As soon as we came out of the station, people almost drenched with colours were chasing to colour us. With small sprinkle of those colour powders, we managed to escape.. Next, we headed to the university campus only to find that all the morning cultural programs were over. Anyways, our next mission was to fish out some place to have our lunch and thanks to the University canteen, we had a patefull aur platefull meals. As we came out, the air of holi and celebration was in the wind and then the actual holi - masti started in our gang. As we mved around the campus, students and junta in small groups were singing and dancing for the dhol-jatra (the bengali avataar of holi, I guess). We too joined and it was all rocking.

Unfortunately, yes the musuem was closed and we marched towards another place called 'Khwai' (still I doubt whether it is Hwai?). On the way, we were smeared with colours again and we gracefully 'accepted' it. By this time, we already were fully coloured and top of it, we took snaps with the junta! Khwai or Hwai, whatever be it, was a big open eucalyptus plantation with eroded valley. The topography here was just awesome. There was a handicrafts and petty goods shandy over there. Since we had to reach home in the night itself, we started early in the evening to the station missing the cultural events in the university.

The return train journey to Kolkata was fun with nonstop chat, gossip and of course, pulling each other's leg .