There was a poem in my high school text book about mosquitoes... and I used to wonder , what a jobless guy the poet must have been! Now I take back my words as I realise how much havoc that silly little creature can wreak on one's life.
I spend only my nights at home on weekdays and this is the time I am supposed to sleep and rejuvenate myself for work later on. For the last one week though , I have been struggling to get a semblance of a proper sleep cycle in place. The reason being a sudden surge in the mosquito population in my area or maybe the impotence of a mosquito repellant called "Mortein" or "GoodKnight" . I think I am getting nearer to the state of an insomniac with 3 -4 hours of sleep everyday and declining brain power as a consequence. Sleep , used to be something which I could enjoy at anytime , any place no matter what ! I am infamous for falling asleep on moving buses while standing in a crowded train etc. and now this situation is ironic at the least .
Getting back to the main protagonist, the chennai f**king mosquito ... did you know that the culprit is a female mosquito?! I can understand women liking me , but the female of another species finding me so attractive as to kiss me on the face and lips everynight is ridiculous!
Although I do relish the final "Basic Instinct" like scene when I hunt them down and massacre them with blood splatterign all over ( the difference being thats probably my own blood). Whats so special about the mosquito that makes it such a villainous vermin? I can go on and on about this , but I ll get in a few important points as in a good group discussion .
1) They bite where it hurts (itches) most , the forehead , the lips , cheeks ... who am I kidding they bite anywhere , as if they care !
2) They have no self control, they sons of b*ithes suck so much blood that they are like drops of blood flying around and smashing them is the closest thing to revenge possible.
3) They buzz around annoyingly near the ear so that I get up even from my deepest dream into an awake nightmare.
4) They come in various sizes, and the bite is inversely proportional to the size. The small black and white ones are like the black adders of mosquitoes.
5) They are all females ! For a fact only the female mosquitoes bite ... the males are vegetarians , now here is a species in which the males are clearly lovable creatures...but are nt they the ones which fertilize the eggs of the females..so f*ck them too! Kill any mosquito on sight I say... bloody
I am cutting short on this list and hope to elaborate further , here are a few valuable tips to extract your well deserved share of vengeance , or vendetta if you d have it.
1) Get an empty plate and put some oil on it such that any fat mosquitoe once stuck in is stuck in it for the rest of its sorry life unless you kill it before its natural term of existance expires , and then just master the art of swinging the plate at any flying mosquitoe and enjoy! The detestable creatures get stuck in the muck so easily , you can already feel your mood lightening ! You can probably kill them off one by one after capturing them or just throw them away to suffer a sorry death over a few days... I would recommend the former coz you never know if they get up and fly away!
2) Get an empty glass glass( a glass tumbler ie) and try to capture a mosquito alive ! You could swat one such that its momentarily knocked out and then get to work ;). Put it in the glass , place the glass upside down and then you do a whole lot of things. ...
a) get a mosquito mat and let the fumes in and watch the fun!
b) get a magnifying glass and burn the little bastar*s
c) just shake them so hard their brains and other organs get exchanged !
3) You could also place a subject on a hot mosquito coil/ mat and watch the fun .
4) Ever tried drowning a mosquito? Well its tough , I guess the one I killed died out of shock rather than water entering its...lungs?
Hmm , thats quite an impressive list of ways to exact revenge ... maybe I can write a whole book about this! Lets see..
Monday, December 11, 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
Bike trip to office( over)
It was a periodic pounding , an irritating noise to say the least. From the middle of a successful sojourn at my "happy place" , I got up from my bed a throbbing head ache. It was not going to be a good day, some thing told me. It must be one of those things which humans are very good at , calculations based on memory and prediction , the stuff which machines can't do for nuts . I could say that something was totally out of place even before I went to the loo.
A queer dream it was , the one that I was rudely awoken from. I brushed my teeth with the conscious feeling of a pain in one of my pre molars which grew ever so little everyday. And as I turned around , another pain , somewhere near the heart towards the right , made its presence felt. I knew it was not the cardiac muscle for sure, but it was a bugging pain nevertheless. There was a time I used to think I was if not invincible , at least invulnerable to such "static" pains. But it was all happening to me , I was a physical entity and not just thought like many philosophers would have us beleive . I was affected even by the slightest of mosquito bites and the slightest brush of long hair of a woman was indescribably enjoyable. With such mundane thoughts my day began and I set out with a mismatched pair of socks ( courtesy : my house maid) from my room. As I opened and closed several doors to get out of the container called "my" house , I relished the feeling of ownership... of that space , which nobody could invade . The space of my room , my computer , my bed ... my bathroom . Yes, being alone in this world had its benefits.
Behind the gate stood my bike . The gate opened directly to the road . The houses in Chennai are not like what you would see in American TV series... like "The Wonder Years" , with open lawns and neatly arranged houses , with so much space that you would hardly brush against anyone without pure intention of doing it . Here , evidence suggests that the houses are built by the individual who happened to own that plot of land and it was built with parameters which at that time were to him suitable and reasonably affordable. This results in innumerable permutations and combinations like the one on my street. My house , incidentally I am a tenant is quite different from the immediate neighbours' on the left and the right and across the road, which are all apartments. Mine is a "house" , with me living on the first floor along with another college and work friend. Nothing of much significance about my house except that I live there ;).
My bike still stood there , as it has through so many good times and bad . The bad being several accidents which could have ended my riding and any other do"ing" s... and the good being all those times spent at exhilirating speeds or with interesting company behind . After a customary wipe with the filthy (which could be considered an euphemism!) cloth , my bike was once again transfigured to a noble steed hehe and stood erect almost inviting me to sit , like the horse in the movie "Spirit". Climbing onto my bike I moved it with familiar ease out of the gates and onto the road. Closing the gate behind , I decided to make it to office in record time.
My trusty bike is a Yamaha RX - 135 , made in 2000, in a way they are never going to be made again. The more natural thing to me , I have begun to feel for a long time now , between running and riding my bike is the latter . I kick started it , one of the things about my bike , is that it requires a kick everyday to get it started , like any obstinate human being (like me) needs to get going (hehe). It came alive with the sound which can only be a Yamaha 2 Stroke engine and I lovingly ran my hands over the tank and touched the metal font which had the word "YAMAHA" on either of the flanks. Revving up the engine a couple of times, I slowly released the clutch from the first gear , it sprang forward and I was on my way. As is the case with many heroes on noble steeds ( like in the movie "shrek"), I always face my share of obstacles and fire breathing dragons on the way to the "castle". The only variable missing here is the princess I should say .
Anyway , I gently bent to the left and at the same time turned the handle in the same direction to avoid on of the silly dogs which live on my street. If you think that dogs are animals with great instinct , reflexes and other attributes which make them somewhat better equipped than humans for life on the roads, you are greatly mistaken! I Often see dogs squished by lorries or buses and wonder how they could be so careless. But when I see the dogs on my street, I wonder how they ever survived so many years to reach a ripe old dog age! I am not being unfair to the canine species here, its just that these two dogs are so far removed from the rest of their ilk that they appear to me not as dogs but more as pigs ! First of all, they are really rotund ,what with leftovers from a well to do neighbourhood and a drunken benefactor at nights. Second ,their reflexes are so bad I could easily tie up their legs before they could even attempt to give me a bite . This I say with the assurance of experience in tormenting my labrador at home in Bangalore. And last but not the least , they were afflicted with a severe case of mange which almost made them "Pannis" (pigs in tamil).
My bike journey was now onto the first main road where I need to cut across the main road to enter the mainstream traffic. This I do so with considerable elan and care. An accident in school on a bicycle when I tried to cross a road with only grace and no care makes me extra careful. I realised I needed to make haste to beat my present record and twisted back the accelerator and rapidly changed gears to reach the fourth in few seconds. Within a few seconds, had it not been for an especially long traffic signal , I would have been near IIT Chennai. At this signal , I get my first taste of the heat in Chennai every morning . The futility of daily cleansing struck me as a monumental waste of the country's wealth. Browsing around I looked for a pleasant face in the sea of human traffic. I spotted , as I do once in a while , some pretty software engineers waiting at the bus stand near the signal. Time sure flies when you are enjoying yourself and its true alright.The signal timer reached single 10...9.. and I started my bike . At the count of 5 , the vehicles started moving slowly to cover up the avenue for vehicles going through in the perpendicular direction and get going once the signal is green. This phenomenon , used to appear weird to me initially , but now I know that if this is not done at the right time when there is peak traffie , theres a good chance that you could miss that signal because the already moving vehicles don't pay heed to the signal or rather ignore the red and continue moving with inertia.
Once past this signal , I went through the road where some of my colleagues used to live(Reji) and also where I write the MOCK CAT on sundays. I was moving a somewhat dangerous 50 + speed , when suddenly another guy from a subordinate cross street cut across and I applied squealing brakes to avoid imminent collision. Cursing under my breath about senseless louts , I get through safely momentarily shaken . At the end of that road I took a right to enter Kamaraj Avenue where quite a few people I know stay , including Sanal and his Calicut NIT friends. Its also the road where I get to see attractive women every now and then. You see, its one of the cool residential - cum - good - eating - place kind of street, so theres always a good crowd . I rode past many Honda Activas and scootys , and autos (which never cease to amaze me) . On the Activas , there are the fast college girls, working ladies and sometimes slow elderly gentlemen. On the scooties are the wannabe fast people , who can't go beyond 50 something , but make it a point to block the way for me. The autos are the most interesting. Their movements reflect the state of the driver's mind often. Moving slowly on the side of the road means that he has not found a "giraaki"(customer) yet and is on the lookout for opportunity. A really ripping fast auto with scant respect for any other vehicle save the monstrous MTC buses , means the customer is in the back seat and time is money! . Otherwise , they just like to go slowly minding their business in the middle of the road hehe. With this I reach the end of that illustrious road and take the last left just before the signal.
I was about to venture onto "Sardar Patel" road which for me is quite an important name, because I ve travelled a lot , almost everyday of my stay in Chennai. Its the node in a graph which I have to traverse in order to get any place of importance like office or a movie theatre ;).
Beyond that turn lay the big bad world of Chennai two wheeler traffic. Its as inescapable as the sweltering heat here. However bad this used to be a year ago , when I got my bike, it is now second nature. For example , when you are a beginner on the roads , with a two wheeler , when you see a huge gap on the left side of the road and everyone is trying to go down the centre or the right , you would do the same . "Overtaking from the left " is still a profanity for you. But after being on the road for enough time , you know that the only way to get through some really thick traffic is sometimes go from the left or whatever gaps are available. This of course should be done with extra care , because there can be instances of people trying to cross the road at the very same instance and your combined actions could put you on a collision path. The front brake and some intuition helps a lot here. When you see a bike or an auto slow down in front and there is a possible gap which you could exploit, go for it but not very fast and be prepared for a sudden brake. It pays to be careful on the road , because only when something goes wrong you realise how much trouble it can be. Anyway , Chennai traffic is going to be bad no matter what , so either you learn how to deal with it or get left behind in exhaust ;)
Madhya Kailas and the bridge above it gave way rapidly as I glanced at a speed limit sign which showed 40 and my speedometer showed 55. Thats not much I can assure you because if you have ever travelled at 100 or above you ll know that anything below is just ...mundane. IIT Madras went past me and I glanced at the entry gate. My only memories of this place are those of playing Quake 3 with some of the final year guys the previous year . Traditionally very good at Quake , this college is one of the few places where Quaking is still a religion , if only for a few.
In a way , quake in my college was an offshoot of iit madras , because the first guy who showed me Quake was the brother of an iitm passout ! That was more than 4 years ago and there are now quite a few tricks up my sleeve as well ;). Fading away , those memories made me smile and I swayed to the right to avoid a MTC bus which was ahead and slowing down and moving towards the left of the road. From that point onwards is the "fast zone". Its a stretch of road with no signals , trees lined up on the road(!) albeit only towards the left and actullay stretches along a huge compound wall on the left side. Recently there have been some traffic cops at one or two spots in the "fast zone". My guess is they are there to discourage people from speeding , and not really catch them. How could they ? when they are standing and the possible guilty party would be on a fast bike! Anyway , I consciously slow down at this juncture and as soon as I am out of sight of any such uniformed police, continue at my regular speed. The road narrows down as I reach Raj Bhavan. It appears as though the office building next to Raj Bhavan might be the cause , but its probably because of some lack of planning. The place where I worked for over a year, this place carries a lot of fond memories and unpleasant ones as well! At the junction that immediately follows , I could see office goers like me , united for a moment at a traffic signal in life. This is the Velachery junction and many of the bachelors of the city take a left here to go to the "mansion" suburb of the city (mansion here means a living place akin to a hostel, nothing to do with a palace! ) . Going further down , Mount road enters the scene. This road , I think is the "aorta " of Chennai . Connecting all major parts of the city, its one road which can save you shit loads of trouble if you are geogrophobic ( hows that for a new word ; ) ) like me, and cant remember directions easily! Taking a left at the junction of Mount road and Sardar Patel road ( this is where SP rd ends) , I rush into Guindy . This is one of the most horrible places anywhere for a vehicle phobic pedestrian . To cross the road needs a great deal of confidence and a sense of adventure . There are hardly any signals for a long stretch, a few traffic cops help pedestrians , but still their plight is plainly visible. Occasionally I slow down considerably to let a scared pedestrian cross the road comfortably . For him thats less than half the battle won, because there is the "compound" wall - like divider at the middle of the road , crossing which he has to then go through the anti parallel part of the road which is as crowded.
I went past the Guindy railway station from where I have taken a suburban train to Central (Park Station ) on a few occasions . One of the differences between Chennai and Bangalore ( thats where I am from ) which for me makes Chennai better in a way is the suburban train system.With amazing efficiency and low cost , this is something which every growing city / metro must have ... its amazing how much effort and time such facilities can save. Mumbai is a good example of a city whose very work life is centred on this kind of train system. Soon , I hope Bangalore will have one of these ! The next significant landmark on this road is "Le Royal Meridien", which is the venue for many a politician's stay/function or whatever. When that happens , all common folk like yours truly have to wait for at least half an hour for the array of official bodyguarded cars to pass. Just beyond this lies the great "Kathipara " junction. This is one of those places where traffic from 4 - 5 roads accumulate at peak hours and are regulated by over taxed policemen who dont really seem to have any real control over the vehicles. Taking a curved right along with the rest of the traffic , I entered 100 feet road which is the last main road of my journey to office. Here , something happens to me and to quite a few others beside me , and an irresistable urge to speed takes hold and I let go. Feeling for the last time for that day the hot air blowing into my face , I reach office after a few minutes.... still not able to better my previous record!
A queer dream it was , the one that I was rudely awoken from. I brushed my teeth with the conscious feeling of a pain in one of my pre molars which grew ever so little everyday. And as I turned around , another pain , somewhere near the heart towards the right , made its presence felt. I knew it was not the cardiac muscle for sure, but it was a bugging pain nevertheless. There was a time I used to think I was if not invincible , at least invulnerable to such "static" pains. But it was all happening to me , I was a physical entity and not just thought like many philosophers would have us beleive . I was affected even by the slightest of mosquito bites and the slightest brush of long hair of a woman was indescribably enjoyable. With such mundane thoughts my day began and I set out with a mismatched pair of socks ( courtesy : my house maid) from my room. As I opened and closed several doors to get out of the container called "my" house , I relished the feeling of ownership... of that space , which nobody could invade . The space of my room , my computer , my bed ... my bathroom . Yes, being alone in this world had its benefits.
Behind the gate stood my bike . The gate opened directly to the road . The houses in Chennai are not like what you would see in American TV series... like "The Wonder Years" , with open lawns and neatly arranged houses , with so much space that you would hardly brush against anyone without pure intention of doing it . Here , evidence suggests that the houses are built by the individual who happened to own that plot of land and it was built with parameters which at that time were to him suitable and reasonably affordable. This results in innumerable permutations and combinations like the one on my street. My house , incidentally I am a tenant is quite different from the immediate neighbours' on the left and the right and across the road, which are all apartments. Mine is a "house" , with me living on the first floor along with another college and work friend. Nothing of much significance about my house except that I live there ;).
My bike still stood there , as it has through so many good times and bad . The bad being several accidents which could have ended my riding and any other do"ing" s... and the good being all those times spent at exhilirating speeds or with interesting company behind . After a customary wipe with the filthy (which could be considered an euphemism!) cloth , my bike was once again transfigured to a noble steed hehe and stood erect almost inviting me to sit , like the horse in the movie "Spirit". Climbing onto my bike I moved it with familiar ease out of the gates and onto the road. Closing the gate behind , I decided to make it to office in record time.
My trusty bike is a Yamaha RX - 135 , made in 2000, in a way they are never going to be made again. The more natural thing to me , I have begun to feel for a long time now , between running and riding my bike is the latter . I kick started it , one of the things about my bike , is that it requires a kick everyday to get it started , like any obstinate human being (like me) needs to get going (hehe). It came alive with the sound which can only be a Yamaha 2 Stroke engine and I lovingly ran my hands over the tank and touched the metal font which had the word "YAMAHA" on either of the flanks. Revving up the engine a couple of times, I slowly released the clutch from the first gear , it sprang forward and I was on my way. As is the case with many heroes on noble steeds ( like in the movie "shrek"), I always face my share of obstacles and fire breathing dragons on the way to the "castle". The only variable missing here is the princess I should say .
Anyway , I gently bent to the left and at the same time turned the handle in the same direction to avoid on of the silly dogs which live on my street. If you think that dogs are animals with great instinct , reflexes and other attributes which make them somewhat better equipped than humans for life on the roads, you are greatly mistaken! I Often see dogs squished by lorries or buses and wonder how they could be so careless. But when I see the dogs on my street, I wonder how they ever survived so many years to reach a ripe old dog age! I am not being unfair to the canine species here, its just that these two dogs are so far removed from the rest of their ilk that they appear to me not as dogs but more as pigs ! First of all, they are really rotund ,what with leftovers from a well to do neighbourhood and a drunken benefactor at nights. Second ,their reflexes are so bad I could easily tie up their legs before they could even attempt to give me a bite . This I say with the assurance of experience in tormenting my labrador at home in Bangalore. And last but not the least , they were afflicted with a severe case of mange which almost made them "Pannis" (pigs in tamil).
My bike journey was now onto the first main road where I need to cut across the main road to enter the mainstream traffic. This I do so with considerable elan and care. An accident in school on a bicycle when I tried to cross a road with only grace and no care makes me extra careful. I realised I needed to make haste to beat my present record and twisted back the accelerator and rapidly changed gears to reach the fourth in few seconds. Within a few seconds, had it not been for an especially long traffic signal , I would have been near IIT Chennai. At this signal , I get my first taste of the heat in Chennai every morning . The futility of daily cleansing struck me as a monumental waste of the country's wealth. Browsing around I looked for a pleasant face in the sea of human traffic. I spotted , as I do once in a while , some pretty software engineers waiting at the bus stand near the signal. Time sure flies when you are enjoying yourself and its true alright.The signal timer reached single 10...9.. and I started my bike . At the count of 5 , the vehicles started moving slowly to cover up the avenue for vehicles going through in the perpendicular direction and get going once the signal is green. This phenomenon , used to appear weird to me initially , but now I know that if this is not done at the right time when there is peak traffie , theres a good chance that you could miss that signal because the already moving vehicles don't pay heed to the signal or rather ignore the red and continue moving with inertia.
Once past this signal , I went through the road where some of my colleagues used to live(Reji) and also where I write the MOCK CAT on sundays. I was moving a somewhat dangerous 50 + speed , when suddenly another guy from a subordinate cross street cut across and I applied squealing brakes to avoid imminent collision. Cursing under my breath about senseless louts , I get through safely momentarily shaken . At the end of that road I took a right to enter Kamaraj Avenue where quite a few people I know stay , including Sanal and his Calicut NIT friends. Its also the road where I get to see attractive women every now and then. You see, its one of the cool residential - cum - good - eating - place kind of street, so theres always a good crowd . I rode past many Honda Activas and scootys , and autos (which never cease to amaze me) . On the Activas , there are the fast college girls, working ladies and sometimes slow elderly gentlemen. On the scooties are the wannabe fast people , who can't go beyond 50 something , but make it a point to block the way for me. The autos are the most interesting. Their movements reflect the state of the driver's mind often. Moving slowly on the side of the road means that he has not found a "giraaki"(customer) yet and is on the lookout for opportunity. A really ripping fast auto with scant respect for any other vehicle save the monstrous MTC buses , means the customer is in the back seat and time is money! . Otherwise , they just like to go slowly minding their business in the middle of the road hehe. With this I reach the end of that illustrious road and take the last left just before the signal.
I was about to venture onto "Sardar Patel" road which for me is quite an important name, because I ve travelled a lot , almost everyday of my stay in Chennai. Its the node in a graph which I have to traverse in order to get any place of importance like office or a movie theatre ;).
Beyond that turn lay the big bad world of Chennai two wheeler traffic. Its as inescapable as the sweltering heat here. However bad this used to be a year ago , when I got my bike, it is now second nature. For example , when you are a beginner on the roads , with a two wheeler , when you see a huge gap on the left side of the road and everyone is trying to go down the centre or the right , you would do the same . "Overtaking from the left " is still a profanity for you. But after being on the road for enough time , you know that the only way to get through some really thick traffic is sometimes go from the left or whatever gaps are available. This of course should be done with extra care , because there can be instances of people trying to cross the road at the very same instance and your combined actions could put you on a collision path. The front brake and some intuition helps a lot here. When you see a bike or an auto slow down in front and there is a possible gap which you could exploit, go for it but not very fast and be prepared for a sudden brake. It pays to be careful on the road , because only when something goes wrong you realise how much trouble it can be. Anyway , Chennai traffic is going to be bad no matter what , so either you learn how to deal with it or get left behind in exhaust ;)
Madhya Kailas and the bridge above it gave way rapidly as I glanced at a speed limit sign which showed 40 and my speedometer showed 55. Thats not much I can assure you because if you have ever travelled at 100 or above you ll know that anything below is just ...mundane. IIT Madras went past me and I glanced at the entry gate. My only memories of this place are those of playing Quake 3 with some of the final year guys the previous year . Traditionally very good at Quake , this college is one of the few places where Quaking is still a religion , if only for a few.
In a way , quake in my college was an offshoot of iit madras , because the first guy who showed me Quake was the brother of an iitm passout ! That was more than 4 years ago and there are now quite a few tricks up my sleeve as well ;). Fading away , those memories made me smile and I swayed to the right to avoid a MTC bus which was ahead and slowing down and moving towards the left of the road. From that point onwards is the "fast zone". Its a stretch of road with no signals , trees lined up on the road(!) albeit only towards the left and actullay stretches along a huge compound wall on the left side. Recently there have been some traffic cops at one or two spots in the "fast zone". My guess is they are there to discourage people from speeding , and not really catch them. How could they ? when they are standing and the possible guilty party would be on a fast bike! Anyway , I consciously slow down at this juncture and as soon as I am out of sight of any such uniformed police, continue at my regular speed. The road narrows down as I reach Raj Bhavan. It appears as though the office building next to Raj Bhavan might be the cause , but its probably because of some lack of planning. The place where I worked for over a year, this place carries a lot of fond memories and unpleasant ones as well! At the junction that immediately follows , I could see office goers like me , united for a moment at a traffic signal in life. This is the Velachery junction and many of the bachelors of the city take a left here to go to the "mansion" suburb of the city (mansion here means a living place akin to a hostel, nothing to do with a palace! ) . Going further down , Mount road enters the scene. This road , I think is the "aorta " of Chennai . Connecting all major parts of the city, its one road which can save you shit loads of trouble if you are geogrophobic ( hows that for a new word ; ) ) like me, and cant remember directions easily! Taking a left at the junction of Mount road and Sardar Patel road ( this is where SP rd ends) , I rush into Guindy . This is one of the most horrible places anywhere for a vehicle phobic pedestrian . To cross the road needs a great deal of confidence and a sense of adventure . There are hardly any signals for a long stretch, a few traffic cops help pedestrians , but still their plight is plainly visible. Occasionally I slow down considerably to let a scared pedestrian cross the road comfortably . For him thats less than half the battle won, because there is the "compound" wall - like divider at the middle of the road , crossing which he has to then go through the anti parallel part of the road which is as crowded.
I went past the Guindy railway station from where I have taken a suburban train to Central (Park Station ) on a few occasions . One of the differences between Chennai and Bangalore ( thats where I am from ) which for me makes Chennai better in a way is the suburban train system.With amazing efficiency and low cost , this is something which every growing city / metro must have ... its amazing how much effort and time such facilities can save. Mumbai is a good example of a city whose very work life is centred on this kind of train system. Soon , I hope Bangalore will have one of these ! The next significant landmark on this road is "Le Royal Meridien", which is the venue for many a politician's stay/function or whatever. When that happens , all common folk like yours truly have to wait for at least half an hour for the array of official bodyguarded cars to pass. Just beyond this lies the great "Kathipara " junction. This is one of those places where traffic from 4 - 5 roads accumulate at peak hours and are regulated by over taxed policemen who dont really seem to have any real control over the vehicles. Taking a curved right along with the rest of the traffic , I entered 100 feet road which is the last main road of my journey to office. Here , something happens to me and to quite a few others beside me , and an irresistable urge to speed takes hold and I let go. Feeling for the last time for that day the hot air blowing into my face , I reach office after a few minutes.... still not able to better my previous record!
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Mocking the CAT
150 questions , three sections : Tenth standard Maths , Labyrinthine English , Totally encrypted Data to interpret... how tough can it be??
This is how i felt at the beginning of the 3rd mock CAT I took up today at 10 30 am . This pattern was a departure from the last 2 tests I wrote , which consisted of 90 Questions with 10 one mark and 20 two mark questions in each section. Looking at the analysis of the paper in the web site, I got the impression that it was supposed to be easier than the earlier few tests. For me it turned out to be a bad experience. Thinking about it now , I think that I made some wrong choices within those 120 minutes... thankfully its not the real thing !
The mistakes I made in the Verbal ability section : I rely on the grammar and vocab portion of the section usually to get me through comfortably and only after I finish this do I go for the Reading comprehension. I have been warned about this approach earlier , but today it was decisive, I need to change my strategy . No more shying away from RC... its really weird if you think about it though. I am what you could call a somewhat voracious reader. But when it comes to RC, something goes wrong everytime ... so now I make a vow that I ll do at least "n-2" passages from now on in RC ! The grammar and sentence completion parts of the section were to say the least awfully twisted... this is usually my favourite section! In this , I need to be able to leave questions and not make suicidal attempts.
In DI: Well , I did not do much in this section , in fact I have not done much until now in any of the tests. There were 50 Qs like in any other section and its all the more distressing to see more questions which seem unanswerable ! This is slowly getting to be a phobia now and this is another sections where I have to concentrate like RC . This is more important though because I am clearing Verbal and not DI!
In quants: In the first 2 tests , I chose the right questions and cleared both the test cutoffs comfortably , which was pleasantly surprising considering that a veteran CAT guy in my office could nt do it and so did a couple of my friends. This time though , the change in pattern and lack of strategy at that point( the right strategy is to look carefully from among more available options for the right Qs) , made me choose some wrong Qs and get stuck ! In short I got emotionally invovled with the problems somewhere in between and thats the last thing anyone with CAT aspirations should do!
Overall , the daily distribution of time to office and study is not working out . Attending morning class is fine, I am doing that regularly, and office as well is fine , but where I insert the additionaly preparation time is giving me problems. I have been speculating combined studies with a couple of TIME friends and also with a colleague, but what makes me hesitate is that we ll end up having fun and not do anything else besides. I think I ll give it a try ... heard someone say , try everything once before rejecting ;) . 16 more to go and the clock is ticking , wish me luck...
and if you happen to read this , please give me tips or what ever you can ...
railmani
This is how i felt at the beginning of the 3rd mock CAT I took up today at 10 30 am . This pattern was a departure from the last 2 tests I wrote , which consisted of 90 Questions with 10 one mark and 20 two mark questions in each section. Looking at the analysis of the paper in the web site, I got the impression that it was supposed to be easier than the earlier few tests. For me it turned out to be a bad experience. Thinking about it now , I think that I made some wrong choices within those 120 minutes... thankfully its not the real thing !
The mistakes I made in the Verbal ability section : I rely on the grammar and vocab portion of the section usually to get me through comfortably and only after I finish this do I go for the Reading comprehension. I have been warned about this approach earlier , but today it was decisive, I need to change my strategy . No more shying away from RC... its really weird if you think about it though. I am what you could call a somewhat voracious reader. But when it comes to RC, something goes wrong everytime ... so now I make a vow that I ll do at least "n-2" passages from now on in RC ! The grammar and sentence completion parts of the section were to say the least awfully twisted... this is usually my favourite section! In this , I need to be able to leave questions and not make suicidal attempts.
In DI: Well , I did not do much in this section , in fact I have not done much until now in any of the tests. There were 50 Qs like in any other section and its all the more distressing to see more questions which seem unanswerable ! This is slowly getting to be a phobia now and this is another sections where I have to concentrate like RC . This is more important though because I am clearing Verbal and not DI!
In quants: In the first 2 tests , I chose the right questions and cleared both the test cutoffs comfortably , which was pleasantly surprising considering that a veteran CAT guy in my office could nt do it and so did a couple of my friends. This time though , the change in pattern and lack of strategy at that point( the right strategy is to look carefully from among more available options for the right Qs) , made me choose some wrong Qs and get stuck ! In short I got emotionally invovled with the problems somewhere in between and thats the last thing anyone with CAT aspirations should do!
Overall , the daily distribution of time to office and study is not working out . Attending morning class is fine, I am doing that regularly, and office as well is fine , but where I insert the additionaly preparation time is giving me problems. I have been speculating combined studies with a couple of TIME friends and also with a colleague, but what makes me hesitate is that we ll end up having fun and not do anything else besides. I think I ll give it a try ... heard someone say , try everything once before rejecting ;) . 16 more to go and the clock is ticking , wish me luck...
and if you happen to read this , please give me tips or what ever you can ...
railmani
Friday, July 07, 2006
Classroom revisited..
My fondest memories of the classroom experience are spread over the latter part of high school , engineering and now at TIME CAT coaching classes. The last one is still not that much of a memory as I am in the midst of it.
Now you might be wondering whats so special about going to a CAT coaching class , a large number of people are doing in presently. The essential difference here is that this is the second time I am doing it! Shocking , surprising whatever it is , its a decision I won't regret , judging by the classes, tests,faculty , material ... and most of all how much my earlier classes at IMS sucked!
Yes, its true ... TIME rocks and IMS sucks. This conclusion is based purely on my experiences alone and anyone is free to contend or concur with me. Here are some of the key differences between the two ( both centres are in Adyar, IMS is near near Adyar Signal and TIME is near MGR Janaki college).
1) Ambience
IMS is awfully cramped , it is a small shady place with A/C and all , but hardly any place to walk around . TIME is conducted in decent classrooms (MGR Janaki college).
2) Basic reference / study material
IMS material sucks big time. They dont realise that people preparing for CAT come from different backgrounds and dont have the time to read a text book kind of material each of which is bigger than any you might have had in school! ( except perhaps your Atlas).
A word list "book" is given to you... which is not even as useful as a dictionary .Who the hell will carry it around everywhere , most of all office?
TIME material is concise, with relevant problems ( in the case of Math) and to be honest , I ve not gone through the english stuff yet. The cue cards though are impressive, if not sufficient to learn all words , at least they are more handy and digestable than one big book which we already have in the form of a dictionary.
3) Faculty
This is one department where TIME scores way above IMS. Most of the IMS faculty are very good, with relevant experience with whatever they are teaching . Its really heartening to meet English teachers of rare quality after school ... in fact better than those at school ( FAPS,Bangalore). The maths teachers are very good as well . Some are excellent and others are satisfactory, but overall standard is good and they do their job well.
At IMS , I found there was a fifty - fifty distribution of bad and good faculty . There was one good English teacher , but the other one was so horrible that english rated negative for me at IMS. This I was able to make out because I knew what mistakes and negligence was being meted out to the students there .
4) Class room material
At IMS: From day one , even at the concept building classes , you are expected to race with time! When you are learning something , its against logic to hurry it. And when I used to try clarifying things, it would be pushed to the end of the class... which is of no use most of the time.
I know for a fact that if I did nt understand something , most of the class would not have. And this speaks poorly of the design of the material to be completed in a short time and also by the staff handling the classes. The class room material is awfully rigid , with fixed deadlines for every set of problems and leaving little scope for the faculty to be flexible.
At TIME: Concept building is learning how to solve problems in Maths ,with a good reason behind every formula used ; learning ways to identify errors in English, logical explanations of some features of the language and the like. It all boils down to the experience and ability of the staff. The class room material is NOT used to govern the class room experience... in fact , the faculty relies on his/her own experience and the material is used as a tool not as a fetter .
5) Timings
There is a slight difference here , I went to the evening classes at IMS ( 7 to 8 30 pm) and attend morning classes at TIME ( 6 to 7 45 am). Comparing the morning classes at TIME to the evening classes at IMS may not seem fair, but I ll do it anyway.
Evening classes at IMS are affected by things such as traffic leading up to the classroom from a days work at office; people coming in late from work, college ; even the faculty coming in after a day's work ( most of them are not full time); change in shcedule because of faculty not turning up because of problems arising in the day time and spilling over into the class time.
The morning classes at TIME pose a different problem : getting up and ready by 6 am! Once this task is accomplished , the rest is easy. The faculty is almost always on time and not more than 5 minutes late and there is no problem with the class going on for even half an hour more than scheduled because its early in the morning and there's the whole day ahead! There is a world of difference between the two... anyone who wants to go for coaching classes, morning is the time for it... and this is coming from a hard core night gaming guy!
6) Centre manager
This might not apply to all IMS centres but the one at Adyar has a real bad one is all I can say. Yeah , before collecting the fees , she was very polite and all, but after that all experiences left a bad taste in my mouth. With unpredictable merging of batches to suit her whim and fancy and some bullshit reasons , she used to pre pone classes to 6 30 pm.. when coming at 7 pm itself was tough for the working folk like me and couple of others. I had paid my hard earned money for class room coaching and she comes and preaches the good of the "majority" and all that. I wonder how I actually went through this without running her over with my yamaha... guess it would nt have made any difference , my bikes as dirty as it can get anyway.
At TIME, the centre manager is a voracious speaker to say the least. May not be eloquent in the strictest sense , but has amazing focus on what he is saying ... if he can speak about test taking strategies for 2 hours at a stretch! That is the only experience with him I have had until now . He is also a member of the teaching faculty at TIME , so I guess I will meet him sometime as the faculty allocation works on a rotation basis across all centres in Chennai. I ve got some intuitive and logical approaches to take the test which nobody at IMS able to offer with the conviction as he did.
7) Human touch
This is a very important factor which I found mostly missing at IMS , whether it was the faculty , centre manager or the receptionists for that matter. During the month of July last year ,I was down with Jaundice and staying at home in Bangalore . I tried in vain to get the material to be sent to me from the centre at Adyar... thanks to the apathy of the centre manager. At the end of the recovery period, I got a big bundle of material for the time I missed.
I cant say much about the office staff at TIME , most of them are cooperative. Faculty again I say is very good and they are genuinely helpful when you ask them for help.
8) Mock/Sim CATS
An important thing I almost forgot!
At TIME , there are 20 mock CATS! right from the time you join classes for you to get a feel of the real thing . Its not an overkill at all, considering that you get an idea where you stand right from the beginning , with good feedback as well.Many toppers who eventually make it to the iims say that this is the most important part of their preparation for the real thing in November.
At IMS , there are 8 Sim CATS in total and a whole lot of other home based or class room based tests which I think is something like Ruffles lays giving chips in different coloured packets . Even if you are just planning to take a test series, theres more value for money with TIME...
To conclude , I ve not felt any better than I do now about my prospects at CAT. At IMS , you are made to feel how difficult it is to get there rather than showing how to get there... but at TIME , that is not the focus, they do their job and if you do yours, theres no stopping you!
Now you might be wondering whats so special about going to a CAT coaching class , a large number of people are doing in presently. The essential difference here is that this is the second time I am doing it! Shocking , surprising whatever it is , its a decision I won't regret , judging by the classes, tests,faculty , material ... and most of all how much my earlier classes at IMS sucked!
Yes, its true ... TIME rocks and IMS sucks. This conclusion is based purely on my experiences alone and anyone is free to contend or concur with me. Here are some of the key differences between the two ( both centres are in Adyar, IMS is near near Adyar Signal and TIME is near MGR Janaki college).
1) Ambience
IMS is awfully cramped , it is a small shady place with A/C and all , but hardly any place to walk around . TIME is conducted in decent classrooms (MGR Janaki college).
2) Basic reference / study material
IMS material sucks big time. They dont realise that people preparing for CAT come from different backgrounds and dont have the time to read a text book kind of material each of which is bigger than any you might have had in school! ( except perhaps your Atlas).
A word list "book" is given to you... which is not even as useful as a dictionary .Who the hell will carry it around everywhere , most of all office?
TIME material is concise, with relevant problems ( in the case of Math) and to be honest , I ve not gone through the english stuff yet. The cue cards though are impressive, if not sufficient to learn all words , at least they are more handy and digestable than one big book which we already have in the form of a dictionary.
3) Faculty
This is one department where TIME scores way above IMS. Most of the IMS faculty are very good, with relevant experience with whatever they are teaching . Its really heartening to meet English teachers of rare quality after school ... in fact better than those at school ( FAPS,Bangalore). The maths teachers are very good as well . Some are excellent and others are satisfactory, but overall standard is good and they do their job well.
At IMS , I found there was a fifty - fifty distribution of bad and good faculty . There was one good English teacher , but the other one was so horrible that english rated negative for me at IMS. This I was able to make out because I knew what mistakes and negligence was being meted out to the students there .
4) Class room material
At IMS: From day one , even at the concept building classes , you are expected to race with time! When you are learning something , its against logic to hurry it. And when I used to try clarifying things, it would be pushed to the end of the class... which is of no use most of the time.
I know for a fact that if I did nt understand something , most of the class would not have. And this speaks poorly of the design of the material to be completed in a short time and also by the staff handling the classes. The class room material is awfully rigid , with fixed deadlines for every set of problems and leaving little scope for the faculty to be flexible.
At TIME: Concept building is learning how to solve problems in Maths ,with a good reason behind every formula used ; learning ways to identify errors in English, logical explanations of some features of the language and the like. It all boils down to the experience and ability of the staff. The class room material is NOT used to govern the class room experience... in fact , the faculty relies on his/her own experience and the material is used as a tool not as a fetter .
5) Timings
There is a slight difference here , I went to the evening classes at IMS ( 7 to 8 30 pm) and attend morning classes at TIME ( 6 to 7 45 am). Comparing the morning classes at TIME to the evening classes at IMS may not seem fair, but I ll do it anyway.
Evening classes at IMS are affected by things such as traffic leading up to the classroom from a days work at office; people coming in late from work, college ; even the faculty coming in after a day's work ( most of them are not full time); change in shcedule because of faculty not turning up because of problems arising in the day time and spilling over into the class time.
The morning classes at TIME pose a different problem : getting up and ready by 6 am! Once this task is accomplished , the rest is easy. The faculty is almost always on time and not more than 5 minutes late and there is no problem with the class going on for even half an hour more than scheduled because its early in the morning and there's the whole day ahead! There is a world of difference between the two... anyone who wants to go for coaching classes, morning is the time for it... and this is coming from a hard core night gaming guy!
6) Centre manager
This might not apply to all IMS centres but the one at Adyar has a real bad one is all I can say. Yeah , before collecting the fees , she was very polite and all, but after that all experiences left a bad taste in my mouth. With unpredictable merging of batches to suit her whim and fancy and some bullshit reasons , she used to pre pone classes to 6 30 pm.. when coming at 7 pm itself was tough for the working folk like me and couple of others. I had paid my hard earned money for class room coaching and she comes and preaches the good of the "majority" and all that. I wonder how I actually went through this without running her over with my yamaha... guess it would nt have made any difference , my bikes as dirty as it can get anyway.
At TIME, the centre manager is a voracious speaker to say the least. May not be eloquent in the strictest sense , but has amazing focus on what he is saying ... if he can speak about test taking strategies for 2 hours at a stretch! That is the only experience with him I have had until now . He is also a member of the teaching faculty at TIME , so I guess I will meet him sometime as the faculty allocation works on a rotation basis across all centres in Chennai. I ve got some intuitive and logical approaches to take the test which nobody at IMS able to offer with the conviction as he did.
7) Human touch
This is a very important factor which I found mostly missing at IMS , whether it was the faculty , centre manager or the receptionists for that matter. During the month of July last year ,I was down with Jaundice and staying at home in Bangalore . I tried in vain to get the material to be sent to me from the centre at Adyar... thanks to the apathy of the centre manager. At the end of the recovery period, I got a big bundle of material for the time I missed.
I cant say much about the office staff at TIME , most of them are cooperative. Faculty again I say is very good and they are genuinely helpful when you ask them for help.
8) Mock/Sim CATS
An important thing I almost forgot!
At TIME , there are 20 mock CATS! right from the time you join classes for you to get a feel of the real thing . Its not an overkill at all, considering that you get an idea where you stand right from the beginning , with good feedback as well.Many toppers who eventually make it to the iims say that this is the most important part of their preparation for the real thing in November.
At IMS , there are 8 Sim CATS in total and a whole lot of other home based or class room based tests which I think is something like Ruffles lays giving chips in different coloured packets . Even if you are just planning to take a test series, theres more value for money with TIME...
To conclude , I ve not felt any better than I do now about my prospects at CAT. At IMS , you are made to feel how difficult it is to get there rather than showing how to get there... but at TIME , that is not the focus, they do their job and if you do yours, theres no stopping you!
Friday, June 02, 2006
Terminating thread
30/5/2006. 3 am
Fading away I turned around
I could hear a remnant of a sound
Pausing a while I tried to hear..listen
As the tears fell to the ground they glistened
I knew it was not meant to be
Another broken heart I could not see
Embracing the grief of the tear
I chose to be a mourner sans fear .
In the dark I stood and watched
A pensive step and silent shuffle
A memory being read in a fond grimace
In a moment of weakness my will trifled
An animal grunt my throat escaped
She turned around with fear emboldened
In the dark I could see, a will unscathed
To endure suffering her fate she had resigned.
Coming closer my cloak I withdrew
Showing who I was for real
In her eyes the story unfolded true
In mine my heart waited in an ordeal
Betrayal, hopelessness … relief..Ecstasy
For a long time we stood, I knew not why
In her presence I could not move
She wept as she devoured me with hungry eyes
Her love had been lost
To see her suffer had I tried
To watch the torment of the deprived
Until I knew her life and mine would be the cost
Why had she made me suffer since ..
The time she knew we were meant to be one
Words could no longer be minced
For no thought no body, there were none
A tender touch in the twilight drizzle,
Turned to a violent desire, a fight
A will to own to possess the other, the skin bristled
In a moment of glory, it ended … it was a gory sight
She lay in my arms, a smile on her lips
As she bled …her fingers loosened
The gun slipped out of her grip
A treacherous task had it failed
Part of the job, was this danger
In a trance the gun returned to the holster
If killing was just pulling a trigger
Would nt life be simple ..a snigger
The first time it would ve been,
That I went against a rule
The hunted tried the hunter to be
And to the calling function I returned a bool true.
-------------------------------------------------------
Fading away I turned around
I could hear a remnant of a sound
Pausing a while I tried to hear..listen
As the tears fell to the ground they glistened
I knew it was not meant to be
Another broken heart I could not see
Embracing the grief of the tear
I chose to be a mourner sans fear .
In the dark I stood and watched
A pensive step and silent shuffle
A memory being read in a fond grimace
In a moment of weakness my will trifled
An animal grunt my throat escaped
She turned around with fear emboldened
In the dark I could see, a will unscathed
To endure suffering her fate she had resigned.
Coming closer my cloak I withdrew
Showing who I was for real
In her eyes the story unfolded true
In mine my heart waited in an ordeal
Betrayal, hopelessness … relief..Ecstasy
For a long time we stood, I knew not why
In her presence I could not move
She wept as she devoured me with hungry eyes
Her love had been lost
To see her suffer had I tried
To watch the torment of the deprived
Until I knew her life and mine would be the cost
Why had she made me suffer since ..
The time she knew we were meant to be one
Words could no longer be minced
For no thought no body, there were none
A tender touch in the twilight drizzle,
Turned to a violent desire, a fight
A will to own to possess the other, the skin bristled
In a moment of glory, it ended … it was a gory sight
She lay in my arms, a smile on her lips
As she bled …her fingers loosened
The gun slipped out of her grip
A treacherous task had it failed
Part of the job, was this danger
In a trance the gun returned to the holster
If killing was just pulling a trigger
Would nt life be simple ..a snigger
The first time it would ve been,
That I went against a rule
The hunted tried the hunter to be
And to the calling function I returned a bool true.
-------------------------------------------------------
Insomnia
31/5/2006. 3 am
Waking up in a strange place
I see myself in the mirror on the wall
There I saw an even stranger face
Where was I, had I lost it all?
A day not recent,
I entered. Life so clean
An inspiring rise I had made being decent
Thought I knew everything to be said and seen
A disarming smile I encountered
At every corner of the fast lane
“You the one … who’s needed”
“Here ...you are the main”
At wits end I would always be,
Until the unlikely truth I could almost see.
Every time that smile came back
I knew this was a code I had to hack
A hole too deep I was stepping in
Every helping hand pushed me a little further
Until without one I was afraid to sin
Thinking I was safe in the hands of a brother
As the twilight set in ,
My eyes went dim, portending sleep
The hole I fell into, too much had I sinned
A never ending night, the darkness was complete..
The light came, so sudden
It purged the lingering night
An unfamiliar bed … a naked woman
As I shook my head, she stirred... What a sight
“Honey, it’s too early”
“Come back to bed”
As I stared at the gesturing nymph
A hand I felt on my shoulder
A dream I thought this weird plot
Turning around I saw a mirror stare
In it I stood a moment silent in thought
And then I turned in bed without a care
A familiar pattern emerged through the night
A dream it is when there is a fight
Or when there’s a woman for sex
Or when quake and life mix
And when a mind is made a slave…
For unfitting knaves.
At last the hole opened up dark, wide
I dropped in with a smile wry
Goodbye to consciousness, conscience...And tears dry
I was going to rest in peace, until to work I had to ride.
Waking up in a strange place
I see myself in the mirror on the wall
There I saw an even stranger face
Where was I, had I lost it all?
A day not recent,
I entered. Life so clean
An inspiring rise I had made being decent
Thought I knew everything to be said and seen
A disarming smile I encountered
At every corner of the fast lane
“You the one … who’s needed”
“Here ...you are the main”
At wits end I would always be,
Until the unlikely truth I could almost see.
Every time that smile came back
I knew this was a code I had to hack
A hole too deep I was stepping in
Every helping hand pushed me a little further
Until without one I was afraid to sin
Thinking I was safe in the hands of a brother
As the twilight set in ,
My eyes went dim, portending sleep
The hole I fell into, too much had I sinned
A never ending night, the darkness was complete..
The light came, so sudden
It purged the lingering night
An unfamiliar bed … a naked woman
As I shook my head, she stirred... What a sight
“Honey, it’s too early”
“Come back to bed”
As I stared at the gesturing nymph
A hand I felt on my shoulder
A dream I thought this weird plot
Turning around I saw a mirror stare
In it I stood a moment silent in thought
And then I turned in bed without a care
A familiar pattern emerged through the night
A dream it is when there is a fight
Or when there’s a woman for sex
Or when quake and life mix
And when a mind is made a slave…
For unfitting knaves.
At last the hole opened up dark, wide
I dropped in with a smile wry
Goodbye to consciousness, conscience...And tears dry
I was going to rest in peace, until to work I had to ride.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Road trip to "Pondi"
(22nd and 23rd April,2006)
For a relatively less traveled guy like me, any prospect of going outside the well established routine of “work - home in Chennai – home in Bangalore” was a welcome one. Along with me were a few almost or probably more frustrated guys. Frustrated with quite a few things, mainly with being single since forever …and with being stuck in Chennai for almost two years (this is true for Ruchin and Naga at least). God knows how many real opportunities at meeting pretty girls we missed by not being in Bangalore / Noida or any other place ! Some of my friends may disagree with this, but it’s the whole truth and nothing but the truth (I swear!). And so with dreams of getting to go to a dance bar for the first time ever and trying out some new alcoholic drink (you see, I am a novice in this dept.); we decided Pondicherry would be the ideal place to go for the weekend.
This plan was mooted sometime last year when Naga had joined the other three in Chennai, after all of us landed here through job placements through college. Owing to our busy professional and personal lives, we kept postponing it until finally the time has come for us to go our own ways. Naga is moving to Bangalore for greener pastures (in other words, a better job) and in a short time, Ruchin and I will too. Armed with enough money and
two excellent bikes, a vintage Yamaha Rx 135 and a one year old Honda Unicorn, we made last minute plans on the previous day, i.e. a Friday.
The plan was like this: We start at 11 am in the morning, have brunch and set off. The estimated time of travel was three hours for a distance of about 160 km from Chennai. Keeping in mind an earlier accident on my bike in the dark, I was keen on riding in the day alone. Besides that, we got the location of a good hotel and a DVD shop from one of my colleagues who is from Pondi.
Anyway plans made by us are rarely kept, especially when Vijesh is in the night shift 90% of the time. Moreover, with Ruchin and me going to sleep at 3 am we knew it would happen. Only Naga turned up at 11 am as informed earlier and woke us up from deep slumber. With empty stomachs and full tanks, we set off, 4 on 2 bikes. I was a reluctant rider with a fidgety pillion rider (Vijesh) who btw weighs a ton
. I believe his body density is very high!
After an hour’s ride through the initial crowded portion of ECR (East Coast Road), we reached a highway eating place which we eventually discovered was way too overpriced and gave far too little quantity of anything edible. At the end of it, we were set back by around 550 rupees and an hour of riding. We took off with the determination to make it there before dark.
Ruchin on his Unicorn and without even a pair riding glasses was unstoppable, in spite of having a heavy load behind him (Vijesh who I swapped for a more stable Naga). After the initial lead which I had owing to the starting point, I did not see them except in breaks which we took three – four times in between. I knew I was going too slow … some where in the sixties and occasional seventies .This was because I was scared of falling of the edge of the road as I once did on NH 17 on the west coast …now that’s another story . And so I persisted with the slow riding with stubbornness. Moreover my bike starts vibrating with some resonant frequency or something just when I reach 70 kmph and then it becomes so shaky, it kind of makes me feel that it might fall apart! We carried on past through a pretty well laid road (even the road gets laid once in a while!)... I remember seeing the beach on the way in glimpses and some fields too which were pleasant to the eye.
As it became darker slowly … the distance Naga and I had covered was much lesser than those two and the thought of riding in the dark made me visibly shaky with the bike. At one point of time I started regretting coming by bike with nothing but the bags and the clothes on our back. It would be really awful to have an accident just because we were too confident with our riding or too poor with our planning. After a really slow and careful ride through some rough roads in the last 30 kms to Pondi we reached a dome where we met and decided to stick together, just in case. Next we reached the “Toll Gate” (I think you need to pay money if you are on more than two wheels and planning to enter the city) where we bikers were never stopped which was a relief after all that riding. Once in the city, we found an ICICI atm and took some money just in case the Pondi people were not credit card friendly.
Armed with the name of the Hotel (Ram International) and its location (somewhere near the bus stand), we went a couple of km out of the way to finally find it, when we retraced our steps. I guess your expectations never match what you finally get. It turned out to be a pretty good place on the inside though. At 675 rupees for a day in a double bedroom, with extra beds, it was quite reasonable. Besides there was a T.V without the STB (set top box) problem which Chennai is infamous for. After relaxing for a while on comfortable beds and relieving ourselves of burdens mental, physical and biological … we set off on our search for booze, food and the elusive dance bar! On the way down to reception, I intercepted one of the attendants and as I was asking him “Are there any dance bars you know of?” an old lady and her daughter came up the stairs. On his negative reply I just walked down without looking at anyone … but once down I was wondering why I did that, was so many years of being in conservative company finally affecting me? Anyway reminding myself to be a non conformist, I joined the others to spread the bad news. Ruchin didn’t lose hope and he asked a very decent looking auto driver for a dance bar. He told us that they would all be closed by 10 p.m. cursing our luck, we decided to settle for a Pub or bar and Restaurant to finish off what was left of the night.
The road which goes past the hotel is called “Anna Salai” like the one in Chennai, but with no resemblance at all. The driving on this road was even worse than any road I ve seen in Chennai or Bangalore for that matter! Guys were riding like each one of them owned the road and I was thankful that I was inside an auto for once, besides he wasn’t bleeding me like the Chennai auto guys do for a short trip to office. The destination was a place called “Hot and Cool”, supposedly a “yo” pub. When we did reach it, it was too late, unless you had some “jugaad” (some friends at the right places) to get in. After some thought we decided to get back to our starting point and find some place close to the hotel.
The auto guy dropped us off in front the hotel. It took some effort to suppress Vijesh’s irrational urge to go after DVD’s at that time of the night (around 9:30 pm). With that done, we entered a shop with half its shutters down and a lot of loud voices emanating from within. Inside were all men in various stages of inebriation. We (Ruchin and I) scanned the bottles behind the counter for something familiar. The expert in this department was Ruchin and I was ready to follow his bidding. We bought“Smirnoff Vodka – Citrus twist “for Rs.360. I had one of these at home (in Bangalore) unopened and thought that was the right time to see what it could do. We came out of the shop with the bottle wrapped up in a black polythene cover , I was still smiling at the way the shop guy had said “ Super sir “ and made an appreciative gesture with his thumb and index fingers .
There’s one thing which I learnt from more experienced drinkers (“drunkards” seems derogatory and also untrue), never drink and not eat anything. It seems your stomach will get FUBAR (fu***d up beyond all recognition) . Not willing to attempt any such stunt, we went around looking for food. This is something which we do on weekends in Chennai, foraging. After rejecting several places for not being non vegetarian, being the
Same old Chettinad stuff, and looking drab …we settled for a Chinese restaurant called “China Land”. After one more disappointing experience with pseudo – Chinese food, we headed back to the hotel room.
The way I was raving even before boozing, the guys were really scared what would happen with me in high spirits! Vijesh was the main focus of all our ribbing and leg pulling which he gets done with great enjoyment and the right amount of resistance. This really makes us come up with some real good jokes with him as the main role in them. We had got coke and 7 up to go with it and I took a cautious 100 ml with the 7 up. Naga did the same and Ruchin I guess took more being the more experienced among us. How can you describe the taste of vodka? Hmm, let me try. This was “smooth” as in u don’t feel it burning down your throat so fast or so much. Its not as bad tasting as beer. It made my upper lip feel like it was very soft and tender after some time. I kept complaining that I didn’t feel a thing coming on. And then in about 15 minutes - half an hour or so, I started feeling the slow and steady effects of the alcohol going to my head. If you are sitting down its not that evident. When you stand up and start walking, your balance is affected. Getting back the equilibrium takes time as the response time increases. And so I ended up chasing Vijesh around the room and falling all over the beds. It was fun and it seemed having a little more would be even better. I shifted to having it straight and settled down in a comfortable position on the bed. We talked a lot about things which are close to our hearts and normally would not come out, especially from a guy’s mouth. Old crushes, infatuations … dreams of the future, incidents in the past, all came freely and without hesitation. I felt liberated for some time. So this is what people mean when they say it “loosens the tongue” I thought. We had finished more than half the bottle, main contributions from Ruchin and moi. We were approaching the limits of drowsiness. We went to bed deciding to get up by 8 am, get ready, visit the DVD shop, visit a boat club nearby and if time permitted the Aurobind ashram.
The next day, I gained consciousness at 10 am. Everyone except Ruchin was just getting up. We got ready “aaram se “and decided to vacate the room. Whatever may the case, we had to leave for Chennai by 3 30 pm, not to repeat the night riding problem of the previous day. We had a dosa breakfast at the restaurant “Mayura” on the ground floor and took off on our bikes to “Tic Tac”, the most popular DVD shop in town. The pre noon heat was overwhelming. Only the motion of ou
r bikes made us survive that weather. We were faced with a surprise; “Tic Tac” was not one of those “seedy” places where you buy pirated DVD’s. It was a well established and maintained place where you can buy (pirated) movie DVD’s and related stuff. The shop lay on one of the cross roads of “Anna Salai”. Elbowing through the crowd, I got a place on the counter which stretched from the beginning to the end of the shop. We were amazed by how professionally this was done. It was like they were selling delicious dosas off the tava … but the difference was they were selling copies of original DVD’s at a price which is about 1/100th of the original DVD’s price. I learned later that they buy an original from places like Malaysia/ Singapore and then sell hundreds of copies within hours. Anyway, leaving the issue of piracy aside, it was heaven for my roommate Vijesh who was making a huge
list of movies on paper. After buying stuff worth nearly 2000 rupees, we headed off to destination boat club.
We got directions from auto drivers (they are really indispensable at this) and set off along the ordinary roads to cover an estimated distance of 7 km towards Cuddalore. We reached the place in a short time; it didn’t look anything like a boat club. But we entered anyway; we didn’t have any other better choice. We parked the bikes, paid for that …and again after a
few metres paid some more small change for entrance and camera. We were wondering how many more such counters we would encounter before we reached the boat. After a short walk we came to the actual boat counter where we paid 240 rupees ( 60 per head ) to take a motor boat ride to an island where we could stay for how much time we wanted and come back in a similar boat which would keep “polling” the island for people waiting to return. Armed with the tickets and snacks coupons, we entered the boat and settled down among mostly families who had come for a fun weekend. Not finding any pretty girls, I just looked around as the boat lurched forward into the open water. The motor was a “Yamaha” as I expected. Along one side of the water was the coast dense with coconut trees , which reminded me of pictures of Kerala . We could see the land we were approaching … it seemed quite close, but it took a lot more time than I expected to get to it. I guess motorboats cannot match their land counterparts that easily.
We had something cool to drink and ventured forth onto the yellow sands. We saw a bitch in the water (I mean a female dog) near the land which was looking expectantly towards us. We concluded that it must have been Vijesh’s lover in its last life and now it was waiting for a tearful reunion in the salt water! After a futile attempt to force a reunion, we left it to its fate and went on to see what ours offered. There were some cottages here and there and also some small hut like structures on stilts but there were already too many people in all of them. We found a raised wooden platform which was still not taken and settled down on it. We took some snaps and after some more ribbing and general “Bakwaas” we decided to head back to town for something important … DVD’s of the other kind!
The return to the coast from the island was delayed because of a mini exodus. It seemed like everyone wanted to leave at the same time. Maybe because of the afternoon heat I thought. When we finally made it into the boat, it was better in one way, there was one pretty girl on it. Getting back to city, to make our trip “worth the effort” … we found some DVD shops soon enough. In almost a repeat of our “Tic Tac” experience, we went berserk buying DVD’s because they were cheap. Finally when the time came to leave, one of us, I don’t know who finally popped the question and received an affirmative reply. DVD’s of the other kind were available but at a little higher price and in more discreet packing. After some really funny haggling, we got a totally unverifiable set of DVDs which we bought because we were always hopeful of getting good stuff for less money. We ended up having lunch in some very small, drab place where the seats of the chairs were all torn. Afar a few “chapattis” and orange juices, we headed back home.
Ruchin had bought himself a pair of cooler/riding glasses and took off like a rocket. I was skeptical as to what would happen to my bike beyond 80 kmph until then. But I decided to let go and I did just that. We made good speed on good road once we got past the 30 kms from Pondi. Traveling consistently above 80 kmph, I was really learning what my bike could do. Despite this, the other bike was far ahead at that time. At the first break, I realized we were not that far apart. I thought I could keep the lead from there, but was wrong again, the pair of riding glasses was a deciding factor this time. At the next stop we filled a bottle with tender coconut water and also had a fruit which is very similar to a coconut, but the name of which I don’t recall. It’s like a coconut on the outside (deep purple color though) and has 3 -4 disc shaped kernels with gray stuff and some water inside. From there it was non stop, until we reached “Kabab Court” at 6 30pm. We reached about 10 minutes after Ruchin and Vijesh, which is not such a big difference. Proud and tired of riding so much, we decided to gorge ourselves on Kababs and nothing but Kababs. Priced at 400 rupees , we ordered a “seafood platter” followed by a “Non Veg Platter” . The place has excellent interiors and everything. Even the kababs were fine, except for the Kalmi kababs in the non veg platter. They were totally bland and hard to eat. We did get a replacement piece for that, but only because our appetites were already sated, I let it go at that. Filling up a feedback form with detailed
comments we left for home.
I was relieved to reach Chennai safe and sound. At the end of the trip, I got an idea of how it feels to ride for a three hour stretch, how much fun controlled drinking is, that Pondicherry is the place for DVD’s of any kind and how good it feels to visit new places. We planned to go back there by bus and visit some of the places we missed out , but for then , we rushed back home to check out the DVD’s on my comp.
For a relatively less traveled guy like me, any prospect of going outside the well established routine of “work - home in Chennai – home in Bangalore” was a welcome one. Along with me were a few almost or probably more frustrated guys. Frustrated with quite a few things, mainly with being single since forever …and with being stuck in Chennai for almost two years (this is true for Ruchin and Naga at least). God knows how many real opportunities at meeting pretty girls we missed by not being in Bangalore / Noida or any other place ! Some of my friends may disagree with this, but it’s the whole truth and nothing but the truth (I swear!). And so with dreams of getting to go to a dance bar for the first time ever and trying out some new alcoholic drink (you see, I am a novice in this dept.); we decided Pondicherry would be the ideal place to go for the weekend.
This plan was mooted sometime last year when Naga had joined the other three in Chennai, after all of us landed here through job placements through college. Owing to our busy professional and personal lives, we kept postponing it until finally the time has come for us to go our own ways. Naga is moving to Bangalore for greener pastures (in other words, a better job) and in a short time, Ruchin and I will too. Armed with enough money and
two excellent bikes, a vintage Yamaha Rx 135 and a one year old Honda Unicorn, we made last minute plans on the previous day, i.e. a Friday.The plan was like this: We start at 11 am in the morning, have brunch and set off. The estimated time of travel was three hours for a distance of about 160 km from Chennai. Keeping in mind an earlier accident on my bike in the dark, I was keen on riding in the day alone. Besides that, we got the location of a good hotel and a DVD shop from one of my colleagues who is from Pondi.
Anyway plans made by us are rarely kept, especially when Vijesh is in the night shift 90% of the time. Moreover, with Ruchin and me going to sleep at 3 am we knew it would happen. Only Naga turned up at 11 am as informed earlier and woke us up from deep slumber. With empty stomachs and full tanks, we set off, 4 on 2 bikes. I was a reluctant rider with a fidgety pillion rider (Vijesh) who btw weighs a ton
. I believe his body density is very high!After an hour’s ride through the initial crowded portion of ECR (East Coast Road), we reached a highway eating place which we eventually discovered was way too overpriced and gave far too little quantity of anything edible. At the end of it, we were set back by around 550 rupees and an hour of riding. We took off with the determination to make it there before dark.
Ruchin on his Unicorn and without even a pair riding glasses was unstoppable, in spite of having a heavy load behind him (Vijesh who I swapped for a more stable Naga). After the initial lead which I had owing to the starting point, I did not see them except in breaks which we took three – four times in between. I knew I was going too slow … some where in the sixties and occasional seventies .This was because I was scared of falling of the edge of the road as I once did on NH 17 on the west coast …now that’s another story . And so I persisted with the slow riding with stubbornness. Moreover my bike starts vibrating with some resonant frequency or something just when I reach 70 kmph and then it becomes so shaky, it kind of makes me feel that it might fall apart! We carried on past through a pretty well laid road (even the road gets laid once in a while!)... I remember seeing the beach on the way in glimpses and some fields too which were pleasant to the eye.
As it became darker slowly … the distance Naga and I had covered was much lesser than those two and the thought of riding in the dark made me visibly shaky with the bike. At one point of time I started regretting coming by bike with nothing but the bags and the clothes on our back. It would be really awful to have an accident just because we were too confident with our riding or too poor with our planning. After a really slow and careful ride through some rough roads in the last 30 kms to Pondi we reached a dome where we met and decided to stick together, just in case. Next we reached the “Toll Gate” (I think you need to pay money if you are on more than two wheels and planning to enter the city) where we bikers were never stopped which was a relief after all that riding. Once in the city, we found an ICICI atm and took some money just in case the Pondi people were not credit card friendly.
Armed with the name of the Hotel (Ram International) and its location (somewhere near the bus stand), we went a couple of km out of the way to finally find it, when we retraced our steps. I guess your expectations never match what you finally get. It turned out to be a pretty good place on the inside though. At 675 rupees for a day in a double bedroom, with extra beds, it was quite reasonable. Besides there was a T.V without the STB (set top box) problem which Chennai is infamous for. After relaxing for a while on comfortable beds and relieving ourselves of burdens mental, physical and biological … we set off on our search for booze, food and the elusive dance bar! On the way down to reception, I intercepted one of the attendants and as I was asking him “Are there any dance bars you know of?” an old lady and her daughter came up the stairs. On his negative reply I just walked down without looking at anyone … but once down I was wondering why I did that, was so many years of being in conservative company finally affecting me? Anyway reminding myself to be a non conformist, I joined the others to spread the bad news. Ruchin didn’t lose hope and he asked a very decent looking auto driver for a dance bar. He told us that they would all be closed by 10 p.m. cursing our luck, we decided to settle for a Pub or bar and Restaurant to finish off what was left of the night.
The road which goes past the hotel is called “Anna Salai” like the one in Chennai, but with no resemblance at all. The driving on this road was even worse than any road I ve seen in Chennai or Bangalore for that matter! Guys were riding like each one of them owned the road and I was thankful that I was inside an auto for once, besides he wasn’t bleeding me like the Chennai auto guys do for a short trip to office. The destination was a place called “Hot and Cool”, supposedly a “yo” pub. When we did reach it, it was too late, unless you had some “jugaad” (some friends at the right places) to get in. After some thought we decided to get back to our starting point and find some place close to the hotel.
The auto guy dropped us off in front the hotel. It took some effort to suppress Vijesh’s irrational urge to go after DVD’s at that time of the night (around 9:30 pm). With that done, we entered a shop with half its shutters down and a lot of loud voices emanating from within. Inside were all men in various stages of inebriation. We (Ruchin and I) scanned the bottles behind the counter for something familiar. The expert in this department was Ruchin and I was ready to follow his bidding. We bought“Smirnoff Vodka – Citrus twist “for Rs.360. I had one of these at home (in Bangalore) unopened and thought that was the right time to see what it could do. We came out of the shop with the bottle wrapped up in a black polythene cover , I was still smiling at the way the shop guy had said “ Super sir “ and made an appreciative gesture with his thumb and index fingers .
There’s one thing which I learnt from more experienced drinkers (“drunkards” seems derogatory and also untrue), never drink and not eat anything. It seems your stomach will get FUBAR (fu***d up beyond all recognition) . Not willing to attempt any such stunt, we went around looking for food. This is something which we do on weekends in Chennai, foraging. After rejecting several places for not being non vegetarian, being the
Same old Chettinad stuff, and looking drab …we settled for a Chinese restaurant called “China Land”. After one more disappointing experience with pseudo – Chinese food, we headed back to the hotel room.
The way I was raving even before boozing, the guys were really scared what would happen with me in high spirits! Vijesh was the main focus of all our ribbing and leg pulling which he gets done with great enjoyment and the right amount of resistance. This really makes us come up with some real good jokes with him as the main role in them. We had got coke and 7 up to go with it and I took a cautious 100 ml with the 7 up. Naga did the same and Ruchin I guess took more being the more experienced among us. How can you describe the taste of vodka? Hmm, let me try. This was “smooth” as in u don’t feel it burning down your throat so fast or so much. Its not as bad tasting as beer. It made my upper lip feel like it was very soft and tender after some time. I kept complaining that I didn’t feel a thing coming on. And then in about 15 minutes - half an hour or so, I started feeling the slow and steady effects of the alcohol going to my head. If you are sitting down its not that evident. When you stand up and start walking, your balance is affected. Getting back the equilibrium takes time as the response time increases. And so I ended up chasing Vijesh around the room and falling all over the beds. It was fun and it seemed having a little more would be even better. I shifted to having it straight and settled down in a comfortable position on the bed. We talked a lot about things which are close to our hearts and normally would not come out, especially from a guy’s mouth. Old crushes, infatuations … dreams of the future, incidents in the past, all came freely and without hesitation. I felt liberated for some time. So this is what people mean when they say it “loosens the tongue” I thought. We had finished more than half the bottle, main contributions from Ruchin and moi. We were approaching the limits of drowsiness. We went to bed deciding to get up by 8 am, get ready, visit the DVD shop, visit a boat club nearby and if time permitted the Aurobind ashram.
The next day, I gained consciousness at 10 am. Everyone except Ruchin was just getting up. We got ready “aaram se “and decided to vacate the room. Whatever may the case, we had to leave for Chennai by 3 30 pm, not to repeat the night riding problem of the previous day. We had a dosa breakfast at the restaurant “Mayura” on the ground floor and took off on our bikes to “Tic Tac”, the most popular DVD shop in town. The pre noon heat was overwhelming. Only the motion of ou
r bikes made us survive that weather. We were faced with a surprise; “Tic Tac” was not one of those “seedy” places where you buy pirated DVD’s. It was a well established and maintained place where you can buy (pirated) movie DVD’s and related stuff. The shop lay on one of the cross roads of “Anna Salai”. Elbowing through the crowd, I got a place on the counter which stretched from the beginning to the end of the shop. We were amazed by how professionally this was done. It was like they were selling delicious dosas off the tava … but the difference was they were selling copies of original DVD’s at a price which is about 1/100th of the original DVD’s price. I learned later that they buy an original from places like Malaysia/ Singapore and then sell hundreds of copies within hours. Anyway, leaving the issue of piracy aside, it was heaven for my roommate Vijesh who was making a hugelist of movies on paper. After buying stuff worth nearly 2000 rupees, we headed off to destination boat club.
We got directions from auto drivers (they are really indispensable at this) and set off along the ordinary roads to cover an estimated distance of 7 km towards Cuddalore. We reached the place in a short time; it didn’t look anything like a boat club. But we entered anyway; we didn’t have any other better choice. We parked the bikes, paid for that …and again after a
few metres paid some more small change for entrance and camera. We were wondering how many more such counters we would encounter before we reached the boat. After a short walk we came to the actual boat counter where we paid 240 rupees ( 60 per head ) to take a motor boat ride to an island where we could stay for how much time we wanted and come back in a similar boat which would keep “polling” the island for people waiting to return. Armed with the tickets and snacks coupons, we entered the boat and settled down among mostly families who had come for a fun weekend. Not finding any pretty girls, I just looked around as the boat lurched forward into the open water. The motor was a “Yamaha” as I expected. Along one side of the water was the coast dense with coconut trees , which reminded me of pictures of Kerala . We could see the land we were approaching … it seemed quite close, but it took a lot more time than I expected to get to it. I guess motorboats cannot match their land counterparts that easily.We had something cool to drink and ventured forth onto the yellow sands. We saw a bitch in the water (I mean a female dog) near the land which was looking expectantly towards us. We concluded that it must have been Vijesh’s lover in its last life and now it was waiting for a tearful reunion in the salt water! After a futile attempt to force a reunion, we left it to its fate and went on to see what ours offered. There were some cottages here and there and also some small hut like structures on stilts but there were already too many people in all of them. We found a raised wooden platform which was still not taken and settled down on it. We took some snaps and after some more ribbing and general “Bakwaas” we decided to head back to town for something important … DVD’s of the other kind!
The return to the coast from the island was delayed because of a mini exodus. It seemed like everyone wanted to leave at the same time. Maybe because of the afternoon heat I thought. When we finally made it into the boat, it was better in one way, there was one pretty girl on it. Getting back to city, to make our trip “worth the effort” … we found some DVD shops soon enough. In almost a repeat of our “Tic Tac” experience, we went berserk buying DVD’s because they were cheap. Finally when the time came to leave, one of us, I don’t know who finally popped the question and received an affirmative reply. DVD’s of the other kind were available but at a little higher price and in more discreet packing. After some really funny haggling, we got a totally unverifiable set of DVDs which we bought because we were always hopeful of getting good stuff for less money. We ended up having lunch in some very small, drab place where the seats of the chairs were all torn. Afar a few “chapattis” and orange juices, we headed back home.
Ruchin had bought himself a pair of cooler/riding glasses and took off like a rocket. I was skeptical as to what would happen to my bike beyond 80 kmph until then. But I decided to let go and I did just that. We made good speed on good road once we got past the 30 kms from Pondi. Traveling consistently above 80 kmph, I was really learning what my bike could do. Despite this, the other bike was far ahead at that time. At the first break, I realized we were not that far apart. I thought I could keep the lead from there, but was wrong again, the pair of riding glasses was a deciding factor this time. At the next stop we filled a bottle with tender coconut water and also had a fruit which is very similar to a coconut, but the name of which I don’t recall. It’s like a coconut on the outside (deep purple color though) and has 3 -4 disc shaped kernels with gray stuff and some water inside. From there it was non stop, until we reached “Kabab Court” at 6 30pm. We reached about 10 minutes after Ruchin and Vijesh, which is not such a big difference. Proud and tired of riding so much, we decided to gorge ourselves on Kababs and nothing but Kababs. Priced at 400 rupees , we ordered a “seafood platter” followed by a “Non Veg Platter” . The place has excellent interiors and everything. Even the kababs were fine, except for the Kalmi kababs in the non veg platter. They were totally bland and hard to eat. We did get a replacement piece for that, but only because our appetites were already sated, I let it go at that. Filling up a feedback form with detailed
comments we left for home.
I was relieved to reach Chennai safe and sound. At the end of the trip, I got an idea of how it feels to ride for a three hour stretch, how much fun controlled drinking is, that Pondicherry is the place for DVD’s of any kind and how good it feels to visit new places. We planned to go back there by bus and visit some of the places we missed out , but for then , we rushed back home to check out the DVD’s on my comp.
Monday, April 17, 2006
To read and to be led along...
The last weekend , I was fortunate to somehow get around to read a couple of good books . The first one was "To Kill a mocking bird" . And the other "One Night at a Call Center".
I bought this book last year at Blossoms if I remember right. But since my memory is almost always suspect , I ll leave it at that. The more important thing here is the book was lying in my house in a desolate bookshelf for a long time with other classics like "Moby dick" ( which is incidentally about a whale and not anything else mammalian) and "War and Peace" . To describe each and every book that lives in that book shelf would be really tiring to me to write and u to read , so I ll skip the crap and get to the point.
About the former , its a story about childhood , as seen through the eyes of a really young girl.
It addresses a whole plethora of issues , racism being the foremost. I remember how it used to feel when I had questions burning at the back of head all the time waiting to be answered . And when I finally figured it out , it was such a great experience that it has no substitute , not even Quake (!) . The way this books progresses is somewhat similar , one discovery after another through such an honest outlook , that I think we adults suppress so much , its killing a part of us slowly. When you saw something you did not understand ... when you were a child and had an adult around you who could answer these questions satisfactorily , that must have been the beginning of a very well learned life. I recall that I found most of my answers to unanswered questions through books , and many more questions still remain unanswered , but now the problem is I ve forgotten the questions !
The most impressive characters in this book.... almost all of them are very well constructed. The dude being the Mr.Atticus Finch whose harmless ,boring daddy image at the beginning turns to the thoroughly professional lawyer who will not compromise on his integrity for any reason, even threats to harm him in person. His handling of the curious children (his elder son and younger daughter ) is exemplary , if I could compare with any number of parents I have seen. No offence to any real parents , but that guy teaching his children strong principles , with solid reason behind every belief if something which I dream to achieve if and when I have children of my own. This gentleman not only handles his children well , but there is something which is said about him in the book. He's the same inside his house and outside on the streets. This is something which I have heard from my department (ECE- Electronics and Communication) H.O.D , Dr.P.Subbanna Bhat ... he said it once in a Conference hall , and I still had nt fallen asleep due to Quake stress . He said "Only when what you say , what you do ,what you preach , what you practice are the same , you have integrity .Most people have a rift somewhere in them , which makes one or more of these things go awry ...." something to this effect ..and then of course , like the rest of the half of college lectures , I was lost in uncontrollable involuntary nodding. So this character "Atticus Finch" is one of those guys who believes in being consistent in all versions of his interaction and I know chances of meeting his kind are far and few in between. That's enough about Mr.Finch I think , else I ll end up telling the whole story right here .
The youngest character and the narrator of this story is "Scout" . That's what everyone call this really young girl who does not want to be anything "girly". She reminds me of my child hood friend "Sushma" on whom I had a enormous crush for years until I met her a couple of years ago and all my child hood memories were shattered by what was left of her. Back to "Scout" ... shes the embodiment of curiosity , and she asks away questions and very often the answers are not easy to give . Like when I was a kid and I really wanted to know where babies came from. There were several theories floating around at that time. One of them was that if a bee stung a boy and a girl , the girl would then have the boys baby ! It was an ever greater mystery how the baby which I assumed was in the stomach of the mother would ever come except through the ..... And so my mind was so muddled up with alternative theories put forward or atleast repeated by my classmates , that when the actual stuff was taught to us in school , I could n't believe that what I was hearing was true! It seemed like there was something very uncomfortable about the entire topic , which I believe holds true to this day . Anyway "Scout" the girl asks such and many more questions. The best part about it is that there is someone who can give her a satisfactory answer bound by reason and not just mindless sentiment and emotion. Even when the answers are not satisfactory , the reasoning process of the child does not stop, and this is the most important quality any human being should possess. This I realized only after a very long time in my life. Along with her elder brother , she sets out on a learning adventure almost everyday in the book , and what a dream of brother shes got!
Mr Atticus' son's name is "Jem" , and the name just does nt do justice to what he could have probably grown upto be had he been real , or what he was even as a kid. Whats so special about the kid? He's a thinking boy who goes through that hated adolescent phase with a lot of questions and comes out with so many firm beliefs at the end of it , it makes me feel that I wish I was like him. I guess having a firm and loving mentor in his father (like mine) makes the difference between an average run of the mill guy to a good human being with a firm sense of justice . This is not the only characteristic of this boy , he's very adventurous and because of that ends up making great mistakes and consequently learns much greater lessons at such a young age. Being adventurous is not only important when we are kids , but it becomes all the more important when we are adults and life and work bogs us down. Making mistakes not only prepares us for a rough day , but makes us more rounded personalities. This boy impressed me with the dedication he shows to follow his father's words. The way he stands by his sister and father even when there is grave danger at hand. The sense of fairplay in him makes him feel great remorse when a negro is ill treated by just harsh words of a white prosecutor. He grasps some concepts like how the judicial system of having a jury of citizens is not foolproof and in cases of racial nature ,they become topsy turvy with such deep reasoning that his dad must have been one proud guy !
Well , that was a brief look at some of the main characters in that book . I wish to stop here because I don't know if I am doing any justice to the book by giving inklings of the characters involved. There are atleast 2 more important characters in this story , i ll just name them ... one of them is the black house maid and care taker of the children , "Calpurnia" is her name and she reminds me of "Mammy " in "Gone with the wind"( don't blame me if u have nt read tat one ! its a real killer though ...1024 pages !). I give the last but not the least position to the ultra introvert and indoors neighbor "Arthur Radley" ... he's a legend among the kids because nobody's ever seen him step out of the house. What could be the reason?
To find out that and much more , you ve got to read this book . Its not a scare even for the first timers or beginners with the time required I would say roughly 2 - 3 times of that taken for "5 . someone " . I guess most people I know who do read novels regularly have read it already and think its a great book. What I would advise someone whos going to read any book is to go for it without any prejudice about the name/author/cover and so many things , because I have been made to eat the dust so many times about misjudging a book by its cover , I never dismiss any book without reading at least a couple of chapters.
I started off with talking about 2 books , the other one being "one night at the call center" . I ll write about that hopefully this week. I have a many more interesting stories related to that ... more of that later .
Good night
railmani , 12 39 am , 15th April 2006.
I bought this book last year at Blossoms if I remember right. But since my memory is almost always suspect , I ll leave it at that. The more important thing here is the book was lying in my house in a desolate bookshelf for a long time with other classics like "Moby dick" ( which is incidentally about a whale and not anything else mammalian) and "War and Peace" . To describe each and every book that lives in that book shelf would be really tiring to me to write and u to read , so I ll skip the crap and get to the point.
About the former , its a story about childhood , as seen through the eyes of a really young girl.
It addresses a whole plethora of issues , racism being the foremost. I remember how it used to feel when I had questions burning at the back of head all the time waiting to be answered . And when I finally figured it out , it was such a great experience that it has no substitute , not even Quake (!) . The way this books progresses is somewhat similar , one discovery after another through such an honest outlook , that I think we adults suppress so much , its killing a part of us slowly. When you saw something you did not understand ... when you were a child and had an adult around you who could answer these questions satisfactorily , that must have been the beginning of a very well learned life. I recall that I found most of my answers to unanswered questions through books , and many more questions still remain unanswered , but now the problem is I ve forgotten the questions !
The most impressive characters in this book.... almost all of them are very well constructed. The dude being the Mr.Atticus Finch whose harmless ,boring daddy image at the beginning turns to the thoroughly professional lawyer who will not compromise on his integrity for any reason, even threats to harm him in person. His handling of the curious children (his elder son and younger daughter ) is exemplary , if I could compare with any number of parents I have seen. No offence to any real parents , but that guy teaching his children strong principles , with solid reason behind every belief if something which I dream to achieve if and when I have children of my own. This gentleman not only handles his children well , but there is something which is said about him in the book. He's the same inside his house and outside on the streets. This is something which I have heard from my department (ECE- Electronics and Communication) H.O.D , Dr.P.Subbanna Bhat ... he said it once in a Conference hall , and I still had nt fallen asleep due to Quake stress . He said "Only when what you say , what you do ,what you preach , what you practice are the same , you have integrity .Most people have a rift somewhere in them , which makes one or more of these things go awry ...." something to this effect ..and then of course , like the rest of the half of college lectures , I was lost in uncontrollable involuntary nodding. So this character "Atticus Finch" is one of those guys who believes in being consistent in all versions of his interaction and I know chances of meeting his kind are far and few in between. That's enough about Mr.Finch I think , else I ll end up telling the whole story right here .
The youngest character and the narrator of this story is "Scout" . That's what everyone call this really young girl who does not want to be anything "girly". She reminds me of my child hood friend "Sushma" on whom I had a enormous crush for years until I met her a couple of years ago and all my child hood memories were shattered by what was left of her. Back to "Scout" ... shes the embodiment of curiosity , and she asks away questions and very often the answers are not easy to give . Like when I was a kid and I really wanted to know where babies came from. There were several theories floating around at that time. One of them was that if a bee stung a boy and a girl , the girl would then have the boys baby ! It was an ever greater mystery how the baby which I assumed was in the stomach of the mother would ever come except through the ..... And so my mind was so muddled up with alternative theories put forward or atleast repeated by my classmates , that when the actual stuff was taught to us in school , I could n't believe that what I was hearing was true! It seemed like there was something very uncomfortable about the entire topic , which I believe holds true to this day . Anyway "Scout" the girl asks such and many more questions. The best part about it is that there is someone who can give her a satisfactory answer bound by reason and not just mindless sentiment and emotion. Even when the answers are not satisfactory , the reasoning process of the child does not stop, and this is the most important quality any human being should possess. This I realized only after a very long time in my life. Along with her elder brother , she sets out on a learning adventure almost everyday in the book , and what a dream of brother shes got!
Mr Atticus' son's name is "Jem" , and the name just does nt do justice to what he could have probably grown upto be had he been real , or what he was even as a kid. Whats so special about the kid? He's a thinking boy who goes through that hated adolescent phase with a lot of questions and comes out with so many firm beliefs at the end of it , it makes me feel that I wish I was like him. I guess having a firm and loving mentor in his father (like mine) makes the difference between an average run of the mill guy to a good human being with a firm sense of justice . This is not the only characteristic of this boy , he's very adventurous and because of that ends up making great mistakes and consequently learns much greater lessons at such a young age. Being adventurous is not only important when we are kids , but it becomes all the more important when we are adults and life and work bogs us down. Making mistakes not only prepares us for a rough day , but makes us more rounded personalities. This boy impressed me with the dedication he shows to follow his father's words. The way he stands by his sister and father even when there is grave danger at hand. The sense of fairplay in him makes him feel great remorse when a negro is ill treated by just harsh words of a white prosecutor. He grasps some concepts like how the judicial system of having a jury of citizens is not foolproof and in cases of racial nature ,they become topsy turvy with such deep reasoning that his dad must have been one proud guy !
Well , that was a brief look at some of the main characters in that book . I wish to stop here because I don't know if I am doing any justice to the book by giving inklings of the characters involved. There are atleast 2 more important characters in this story , i ll just name them ... one of them is the black house maid and care taker of the children , "Calpurnia" is her name and she reminds me of "Mammy " in "Gone with the wind"( don't blame me if u have nt read tat one ! its a real killer though ...1024 pages !). I give the last but not the least position to the ultra introvert and indoors neighbor "Arthur Radley" ... he's a legend among the kids because nobody's ever seen him step out of the house. What could be the reason?
To find out that and much more , you ve got to read this book . Its not a scare even for the first timers or beginners with the time required I would say roughly 2 - 3 times of that taken for "5 . someone " . I guess most people I know who do read novels regularly have read it already and think its a great book. What I would advise someone whos going to read any book is to go for it without any prejudice about the name/author/cover and so many things , because I have been made to eat the dust so many times about misjudging a book by its cover , I never dismiss any book without reading at least a couple of chapters.
I started off with talking about 2 books , the other one being "one night at the call center" . I ll write about that hopefully this week. I have a many more interesting stories related to that ... more of that later .
Good night
railmani , 12 39 am , 15th April 2006.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Broad band Nightmare !
After a long and painful struggle with the broadband providers in Chennai , I ve decided to vent some of my frustration here . The whole thing began last year when broadband at home to me meant unlimited access to the world wide web and total freedom to go wherever and do whatever without worrying about any firewalls and moral policing. This dream of mine and the ability to afford it made me register for the bsnl dataone connection . This was supposed to use the land lord's (house owner's) land line connection as we (me and my room mate ) were erstwhile bachelors with little or no use for land lines when all things good or bad happen at work ! And so one fine , a bsn
l guy comes to our place and says they are ready to set it all up! I was really excited and they managed to get it up and running in a mere 2 days ( we ll come to the comparisons with other services later) . This particular connection needed a login and password . At that time , it seemed fine , I mean how much trouble is it to login each time u turn on the comp?? But eventually it became evident there was a reason for this . The resources apparently were n't up and running all the time . And when someday I would come home really excited and just waiting to do some serious blogging / quaking , the ISP would f*** my dreams and just meanly deny any pleasure in life. Ok , sometimes broadband just doesn't connect you say, come on this is India and its a govt. organisation you are talking about . Anyway it used to be good whenever it did connect and I ve played some good games in Quake , and also downloaded some useless yet bulky files in the 2 am to 8 am slot which promises to make you an insomniac for sure ! After a couple of months we got our first bill , as part of the telephone bill and to our collective chagrin , we got some extra download bill ... something like 1000 bucks extra! Ok, we decided to really watch our backs and also our downloads and with extra care we managed to avoid any extra payment the following time. Again we followed the 2 to 8 funda and yet again we were f***ed big time ! So finally after getting no responses from the bsnl ppl, we decided to lose the registration fee and get this huge blood sucker off our backs . After heaving a sigh of relief , we got back to our humdrum lives .
I really missed quaking on broadband and after a couple of months , both of us ( hardcore gamers) decided to try out airtel broadband of which we had got some rave reviews from office folk and friends . It was startlingly simple to get in touch with a PR guy and also set up a meeting . The plan had to be unlimited download and at least 256 kbps ,and since we had two of us, we decided to go for a 256 kbps , unlimited which came up to a steep 1k nearly. We didnt care, all we wanted was to be logged on happily ever after . We rested with fond dreams and all the unpleasant memories of bsnl stashed away. After paying a 500 buck registration , some of the engineers came over and had a look at the existing infrastructure at the locality and came to the conclusion that a new "box" was needed to be put up on the wall of the house we lived in . I think that would act like a junction for more connections to be put up in our street. It was fine by me , but it wasnt for the house owner ...so at the end of the day , we started off with 500 bucks lesser than before and still no broadband! To get that money back , I had to go through a few phone calls and angry smses for a week or so . I did get back a DD with the original amount of Rs.500 , and that was the end of the airtel episode.
Afte another month of no internet , I decided to take the plunge once again and got in touch with Hathway Cable Internet providers. At that time I was ill informed about cable broadband and also the way this particular company operated. After meeting one the PS guys who was properly polite and even pretended to be from home town , I ended up paying Rs 2645 as refundable deposit + registration fees + rent for one month of 256 kbps unltd. I was really impressed when the cable guys came the next day and completed their job of getting the cable into my room. The next day which was a saturday the modem was in place and sometime before sunday afternoon , the connection was up and running. It was really cool and I was patting myself on my back. My new computer had enough bytes to chew on , I thought . But this joy was shortlived as I started downloading some big files , (quake videos and stuff) ... the download rate started off with something like 30 kbps which is pretty decent and then it just decayed steadily and came to 5 kbps!! which was literally daylight robbery . The time it would take to download for a 10 MB file was more than a few hours . By the time one of the hathway guys came to collect the "satisfied" signature from me , I was fuming through my ears. I refused outright to sign any document until he set the connection right. The engineer (thats what he called himself) tried downloading more than one file at a time and thankfully came to the same conclusion . He made me use the silly email service provided by hathway to send an e-mail to chennaihelp@hathway.net , which by the way I suspect is automated to reply " You request has been forwarded to the appropriate section. " or something like that . Anyway , the first time it said this , I was taken in by the promptness of the reply. The engineer took back the modem for "testing" and since then I ve not seen him or the modem again !!
After this incident I mailed these people and called up their customer support many times. The call would be received by a young guy/ girl , probably just out of college , who would n't know nuts about what is going on about my problem. I guess its not their fault that the information is not available to them . After many frustrating calls and irritated emails with names of the people involved and also the obscence fees collected for nothing , still there was no satisfying reply or information about anything. Finally on one fine day (or so i thought) I decided to go their office and confront them outright . After taking some vague directions from Ramana( a friend who I guess knows Chennai pretty well or at least pretends to ..) , I got to their office on Eldham's road sometime in the afternoon . It was a pretty small place I should say. Being used to somewhat bigger workstations and generally everything else at my office , this was pretty cramped . The security guard directed me to the first floor (ground floor is for the Cable division). I was wondering how many people these people must have taken for a ride as I walked up the stairs. I entered the office and right in front was the receptionist , a middle aged , more towards the younger side woman with a disinterested and distracted look . On enquiring I was told someone would come and speak to me. So, I settled down on the musty sofa and was wondering what harsh words would convey my anger and frustration rightly and get things done. I had a look at a notice board placed in front of the entrance . There was a company motto which said something about satifsying the customer expectations always and trying to go beyond that . "Ironically funny " would be a nice comment to attach to it I thought . There were some brochures lying on the table which promised to show what broadband could really do ! Now that I knew what it could do , I was kicking myself mentally for paying that money in the first place.
I got back to my perch and after a few minutes , a really small and shrunken guy with some kind of uniform came to me . I had to speak in Tamil to him .He asked me for the bill which I held. Apparently he wanted some details in it , but I was a bit more careful now after the milk was spilt. I refused to give it to him . After a few more minutes another really tall guy came to me. He looked well dressed and the look on his face was something like embarassment and fear and a bit of professionalism . I explained my plight and added a few more descriptive phrases for effect . He went back in and some conversation ensued which I could hear through my super dull hearing ( guess it was loud) . He came back and said something like
"The process is underway , the Bombay office will have to approve this and as soon as that happens you will get back your money .This will take around 20 days ".
I thought of asking them to do something and return it immediately . But this guy seemed somewhat sincere , he was n't begging and pleading like the others before him , he just stated it matter of factly . I decided to go with my sixth sense and said "ok fine " and went home .
After nearly a 3 weeks of visiting their office , I decided to call them up and find out whats happening . The billing centre put me in touch with some guy called "Ramesh" who promised me vehemently that I would get my money within ten 10 days . Again after 10 days , the same guy said that it was not possible until the first week of the next month , thats april , because of the financial year end or something. I am not too savvy about that , and after promising that I would take legal action against them after that , I kept my phone down yet again in failure .
And that brings me to the present where I am typing out this blog hoping that it might help someone not to get into such avoidable messes . The best thing to avoid such things is to enquire from 3 - 4 people about the service they get from their providers and of course look through google / wikipedia or something . I did all this a little late and came to the conclusion that among all the providers here , airtel gives a good connection , consistent and with less problems. Their PR guys are polite and try hard to get things done . And most importantly , they returned my money with a short delay of a week or so , which is ok-ok. Tata indicom , I heard is ok with some people who don't face any problems after installation. But others say that getting any service is a nightmare ! BSNL is similar to the previous one , their bills are really difficult to believe though . They don't even have a reliable way to keep track of your download status (amount used up so far) and other basic amenities . Matter(a fellow broadband victim) , got a bill of 7k for some month!! Which would mean that he downloaded around 3-4 GB in excess of 1 GB excluding the 2am to 8am slot , which is quite impossible . Other providers I don't know about , it would be interesting to get some input about them as well from anyone reading this.
After much pain and damage , I ve decided to NOT get a broadband connection in Chennai anymore , even if it means no online Quake and less blogging :( . A costly lesson , I hope well learnt .
-railmani
l guy comes to our place and says they are ready to set it all up! I was really excited and they managed to get it up and running in a mere 2 days ( we ll come to the comparisons with other services later) . This particular connection needed a login and password . At that time , it seemed fine , I mean how much trouble is it to login each time u turn on the comp?? But eventually it became evident there was a reason for this . The resources apparently were n't up and running all the time . And when someday I would come home really excited and just waiting to do some serious blogging / quaking , the ISP would f*** my dreams and just meanly deny any pleasure in life. Ok , sometimes broadband just doesn't connect you say, come on this is India and its a govt. organisation you are talking about . Anyway it used to be good whenever it did connect and I ve played some good games in Quake , and also downloaded some useless yet bulky files in the 2 am to 8 am slot which promises to make you an insomniac for sure ! After a couple of months we got our first bill , as part of the telephone bill and to our collective chagrin , we got some extra download bill ... something like 1000 bucks extra! Ok, we decided to really watch our backs and also our downloads and with extra care we managed to avoid any extra payment the following time. Again we followed the 2 to 8 funda and yet again we were f***ed big time ! So finally after getting no responses from the bsnl ppl, we decided to lose the registration fee and get this huge blood sucker off our backs . After heaving a sigh of relief , we got back to our humdrum lives .I really missed quaking on broadband and after a couple of months , both of us ( hardcore gamers) decided to try out airtel broadband of which we had got some rave reviews from office folk and friends . It was startlingly simple to get in touch with a PR guy and also set up a meeting . The plan had to be unlimited download and at least 256 kbps ,and since we had two of us, we decided to go for a 256 kbps , unlimited which came up to a steep 1k nearly. We didnt care, all we wanted was to be logged on happily ever after . We rested with fond dreams and all the unpleasant memories of bsnl stashed away. After paying a 500 buck registration , some of the engineers came over and had a look at the existing infrastructure at the locality and came to the conclusion that a new "box" was needed to be put up on the wall of the house we lived in . I think that would act like a junction for more connections to be put up in our street. It was fine by me , but it wasnt for the house owner ...so at the end of the day , we started off with 500 bucks lesser than before and still no broadband! To get that money back , I had to go through a few phone calls and angry smses for a week or so . I did get back a DD with the original amount of Rs.500 , and that was the end of the airtel episode.
Afte another month of no internet , I decided to take the plunge once again and got in touch with Hathway Cable Internet providers. At that time I was ill informed about cable broadband and also the way this particular company operated. After meeting one the PS guys who was properly polite and even pretended to be from home town , I ended up paying Rs 2645 as refundable deposit + registration fees + rent for one month of 256 kbps unltd. I was really impressed when the cable guys came the next day and completed their job of getting the cable into my room. The next day which was a saturday the modem was in place and sometime before sunday afternoon , the connection was up and running. It was really cool and I was patting myself on my back. My new computer had enough bytes to chew on , I thought . But this joy was shortlived as I started downloading some big files , (quake videos and stuff) ... the download rate started off with something like 30 kbps which is pretty decent and then it just decayed steadily and came to 5 kbps!! which was literally daylight robbery . The time it would take to download for a 10 MB file was more than a few hours . By the time one of the hathway guys came to collect the "satisfied" signature from me , I was fuming through my ears. I refused outright to sign any document until he set the connection right. The engineer (thats what he called himself) tried downloading more than one file at a time and thankfully came to the same conclusion . He made me use the silly email service provided by hathway to send an e-mail to chennaihelp@hathway.net , which by the way I suspect is automated to reply " You request has been forwarded to the appropriate section. " or something like that . Anyway , the first time it said this , I was taken in by the promptness of the reply. The engineer took back the modem for "testing" and since then I ve not seen him or the modem again !!
After this incident I mailed these people and called up their customer support many times. The call would be received by a young guy/ girl , probably just out of college , who would n't know nuts about what is going on about my problem. I guess its not their fault that the information is not available to them . After many frustrating calls and irritated emails with names of the people involved and also the obscence fees collected for nothing , still there was no satisfying reply or information about anything. Finally on one fine day (or so i thought) I decided to go their office and confront them outright . After taking some vague directions from Ramana( a friend who I guess knows Chennai pretty well or at least pretends to ..) , I got to their office on Eldham's road sometime in the afternoon . It was a pretty small place I should say. Being used to somewhat bigger workstations and generally everything else at my office , this was pretty cramped . The security guard directed me to the first floor (ground floor is for the Cable division). I was wondering how many people these people must have taken for a ride as I walked up the stairs. I entered the office and right in front was the receptionist , a middle aged , more towards the younger side woman with a disinterested and distracted look . On enquiring I was told someone would come and speak to me. So, I settled down on the musty sofa and was wondering what harsh words would convey my anger and frustration rightly and get things done. I had a look at a notice board placed in front of the entrance . There was a company motto which said something about satifsying the customer expectations always and trying to go beyond that . "Ironically funny " would be a nice comment to attach to it I thought . There were some brochures lying on the table which promised to show what broadband could really do ! Now that I knew what it could do , I was kicking myself mentally for paying that money in the first place.
I got back to my perch and after a few minutes , a really small and shrunken guy with some kind of uniform came to me . I had to speak in Tamil to him .He asked me for the bill which I held. Apparently he wanted some details in it , but I was a bit more careful now after the milk was spilt. I refused to give it to him . After a few more minutes another really tall guy came to me. He looked well dressed and the look on his face was something like embarassment and fear and a bit of professionalism . I explained my plight and added a few more descriptive phrases for effect . He went back in and some conversation ensued which I could hear through my super dull hearing ( guess it was loud) . He came back and said something like
"The process is underway , the Bombay office will have to approve this and as soon as that happens you will get back your money .This will take around 20 days ".
I thought of asking them to do something and return it immediately . But this guy seemed somewhat sincere , he was n't begging and pleading like the others before him , he just stated it matter of factly . I decided to go with my sixth sense and said "ok fine " and went home .
After nearly a 3 weeks of visiting their office , I decided to call them up and find out whats happening . The billing centre put me in touch with some guy called "Ramesh" who promised me vehemently that I would get my money within ten 10 days . Again after 10 days , the same guy said that it was not possible until the first week of the next month , thats april , because of the financial year end or something. I am not too savvy about that , and after promising that I would take legal action against them after that , I kept my phone down yet again in failure .
And that brings me to the present where I am typing out this blog hoping that it might help someone not to get into such avoidable messes . The best thing to avoid such things is to enquire from 3 - 4 people about the service they get from their providers and of course look through google / wikipedia or something . I did all this a little late and came to the conclusion that among all the providers here , airtel gives a good connection , consistent and with less problems. Their PR guys are polite and try hard to get things done . And most importantly , they returned my money with a short delay of a week or so , which is ok-ok. Tata indicom , I heard is ok with some people who don't face any problems after installation. But others say that getting any service is a nightmare ! BSNL is similar to the previous one , their bills are really difficult to believe though . They don't even have a reliable way to keep track of your download status (amount used up so far) and other basic amenities . Matter(a fellow broadband victim) , got a bill of 7k for some month!! Which would mean that he downloaded around 3-4 GB in excess of 1 GB excluding the 2am to 8am slot , which is quite impossible . Other providers I don't know about , it would be interesting to get some input about them as well from anyone reading this.
After much pain and damage , I ve decided to NOT get a broadband connection in Chennai anymore , even if it means no online Quake and less blogging :( . A costly lesson , I hope well learnt .
-railmani
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Life = (Dream > reality)? Dream : reality ;
What would you do when you finally meet the guy/girl of your dreams? Hmm , I think this is a question most of us must have asked ourselves quite a few times . At least I have . But by thinking about the statement , I make an assumption that the girl who I am thinking about is the girl of my dreams. Might seem like a small technicality , but to me its very difficult to think of some creature who has all the characteristics which I would like in a mate. When I indulge in such fantasy , my thought (while its still clear and still in some sensible domain) are centered around some one I ve met and known, at least talked to . So this means the very idea of a girl of my dream is corrupt , cause the dream girl cannot be defined completely as virtual because shes somewhat dependant on real people and the real ones cannot become the dream one completely because they are in fact finite non abstract beings with some definite characteristics which cannot match a set of parameters which are entirely undefined . Hmm , now that was a whole lot of bullshit at one go , was n't it?? I am getting complaints about this habit of mine from people around me , but what the hell , whens the last time saying anything sensible been fun .
I guess there was one time when I lost out on something because I wasn't sensible enough at the right time . Now that I think of it , there have been quite a few times . One of these was at my college nitk . There used to be a college press club which was considered to be the domain of the highly creative and cool . And moi being somewhat in that category , at least the former ... gave it a try. An illustrious and a really "cool" , (actually one of the coolest to my fresher eyes ) seniors walked in and gave us the topic in a typical bangalore lingo (now tats a vague definition if there ever was one) . " A screw on the floor is better than a nail in the door" . "Give it your best shot he said" .
At that time , my impression of college clubs and other such societies was moulded into a single thought: " Either be the first , different ,or really good at something to make it" . Now I wasn't quite sure I was n't the best , I knew I could be the first to get some new idea , and also the one to really be different at what I did , quite deliberately. And thats what I ended up doing. I wrote one of the most lewd and insane peice of crap I could come up with . I guess you could think what I might have written. I feel really lousy I can't go back in time and erase that. Anyway , with such a topic , I guess the idea was to see how you could make it something worthwhile without letting your mind follow the usual "trying to impress " modes . I ended up one of them in the negative direction . Even then it might have been to my advantage coz u can never really say whose wavelength matches yours and in what way. But when there is such a situation where I have given it a full go in one direction , and when I knew it was bad, ... it would n't succeed. And so I was n't one of the people who made it to the next round . I heard very interesting things about the interviews and also after that , the press gang was considered somewhat a sense of awe , or disdain or many other emotions depending on ones relationship with them. For me , it was a feeling of I should have been one of them, cribbing / gossipping about the college going ons
and at the same time getting in so many puns and hidden meanings that it would have really given me some twisted sense of pleasure. Anyway that was n't meant to be and life went in a different direction.
I started off with a dream mate and now I ll return to that topic . Hmm , What is the most interesting thing about each time I have the dreams I am talking about .They are totally awesome dreams which make me feel sometimes that reality sucks big time! A part of me knows that reality is the ultimate thing and dreaming (especially late morning ) is really harmful to the real life u have) , but that part of me just disappears in the absence of a good night's sleep and consequent fatigue... and I become literally a man living in a dream. I get lost in those small yet so pleasing a fanasy like I take that girl out to the place I eat everyday , and I comment on the smallest details which nobody but me has ever thought about. Like how good the sambhar at "Sangeetha " tastes and why having "Ghee dosa " instead of "oil dosa" is anyday a better option . How wonderful it usually feels to be at a place called Elliot's beach where the bajji's sold hot and piping are such wonderful appetizers and later cause a minor tummy ache without fail. Ok , ok , I know this is kind of wierd and seems unlikely that a guy has such dreams. I can explain . These are some of the thoughts which run through my at some point in the day when I know that I am
lonely and reveries just creep in . Well , one of my wierd fantasies is that this girl is a quaker ( plays this game called quake 3 arena) !! I imagine that we fight for hours at a stretch and shes as good as me and when that happens , the tournament ( 1 on 1 ) games can go on for a long time with really demanding concentrations. The thought of such a game is in itself such a great thing that I can't how it would be if we met face to face .Yeah , I know thats wierd , but does n't everyone want to meet someone whos also great at what you are and is able to enjoy it as much as you do? ...
I guess I ve broadly covered a couple of dream types I ve had until now , one , the really small reveries which come up every now and then about something which is ready to be said but lacks the situation or the right company; two : the really wierd ones where ur deepeset ,darkest desires come true ( well not really tat deep , is it ;)) . There is one more kind I believe , which comes somewhat in between these two. It might be a really not so sensible classification like a discrete "enum" or a "typedef" , but i think its worth documenting . This usually goes like this ... I go ahead with the many rehearsed attempts at proposals and as a pleasant surprise , she accepts ! And then I live through heaven for the rest of that dream , which ... covers quite a bit of time. The time when we go out to different places to eat and we do all the silly exciting things that lovers do. When its so exciting to be out at a restaurant looking deep into her eyes when you know that some class is also going down the drain at college at the same time . Eventually it leads to a marriage and then things can go two ways , one : I can't mention here and the other I suddenly end up with a family and I have such an adorable bunch of kids whose only hero is me ! And the wife is all shy in front of the kids ... yeah , my mind is an awesome place to be and when I finally realise that it was all a dream ... I find it really hard to beleive for some time that what happened actually did not happen at all!
Those are some of my experiences , if you can call them that ... here are some of the really cool stuff as in movies/ stories I ve come across . There is this Science fiction writer called Philip K dick ... who used to write some totally amazing out of the world books. The movie "Total recall" is based on one of his books , in which there is a concept of "memory implants " which give you the impression of having had a wonderful holiday in Mars with the woman of your choice and you can choose the package you want to experience. Now that is one truly twisted story which is so logically appealing yet so amazingly out of the world , u got to watch it to beleive it. Thers is one more story in which there is a cop who is searching for a killer and after he finally solves the mystery , he discovers that he himself is the killer , yeah , multiple personalities ,memory implants , androids, robots were all run of the mill for this guy and seeing through his eyes , you get lost. Not very far behind or maybe in some ways ahead is this other writer called "Isaac Asimov" whose "Foundation " series is his main claim to fame. In one of his short stories collection I ve read one where , there is a profession for dreamers. Can you believe it ? professional dreamers ! but for what reason ? There is technology to capture what goes on while you dream as video and audio ! so the better the dreamer you are , the audience who buys your "dream " has the same experience with the same thrills . It does to come to a logical conclusion at some point of time when the real life of the professional dreamer becomes meaningless , because his first nature is to dream and then to live . Can you imagine a social life where you can't which is real ? the woman in your dreams or the woman who is your wife.... thats what happens here , and that is an amazing story. You can get that book if you tried , i think the name was "collection of short stories " or something similiar to that , by Isaac Asimov.
Well , I think I ve reached a suitable level of exhaustion from quake ,blogging and tv to put me in dream mode , so good night and sweet dreams !
I guess there was one time when I lost out on something because I wasn't sensible enough at the right time . Now that I think of it , there have been quite a few times . One of these was at my college nitk . There used to be a college press club which was considered to be the domain of the highly creative and cool . And moi being somewhat in that category , at least the former ... gave it a try. An illustrious and a really "cool" , (actually one of the coolest to my fresher eyes ) seniors walked in and gave us the topic in a typical bangalore lingo (now tats a vague definition if there ever was one) . " A screw on the floor is better than a nail in the door" . "Give it your best shot he said" .
At that time , my impression of college clubs and other such societies was moulded into a single thought: " Either be the first , different ,or really good at something to make it" . Now I wasn't quite sure I was n't the best , I knew I could be the first to get some new idea , and also the one to really be different at what I did , quite deliberately. And thats what I ended up doing. I wrote one of the most lewd and insane peice of crap I could come up with . I guess you could think what I might have written. I feel really lousy I can't go back in time and erase that. Anyway , with such a topic , I guess the idea was to see how you could make it something worthwhile without letting your mind follow the usual "trying to impress " modes . I ended up one of them in the negative direction . Even then it might have been to my advantage coz u can never really say whose wavelength matches yours and in what way. But when there is such a situation where I have given it a full go in one direction , and when I knew it was bad, ... it would n't succeed. And so I was n't one of the people who made it to the next round . I heard very interesting things about the interviews and also after that , the press gang was considered somewhat a sense of awe , or disdain or many other emotions depending on ones relationship with them. For me , it was a feeling of I should have been one of them, cribbing / gossipping about the college going ons
and at the same time getting in so many puns and hidden meanings that it would have really given me some twisted sense of pleasure. Anyway that was n't meant to be and life went in a different direction.
I started off with a dream mate and now I ll return to that topic . Hmm , What is the most interesting thing about each time I have the dreams I am talking about .They are totally awesome dreams which make me feel sometimes that reality sucks big time! A part of me knows that reality is the ultimate thing and dreaming (especially late morning ) is really harmful to the real life u have) , but that part of me just disappears in the absence of a good night's sleep and consequent fatigue... and I become literally a man living in a dream. I get lost in those small yet so pleasing a fanasy like I take that girl out to the place I eat everyday , and I comment on the smallest details which nobody but me has ever thought about. Like how good the sambhar at "Sangeetha " tastes and why having "Ghee dosa " instead of "oil dosa" is anyday a better option . How wonderful it usually feels to be at a place called Elliot's beach where the bajji's sold hot and piping are such wonderful appetizers and later cause a minor tummy ache without fail. Ok , ok , I know this is kind of wierd and seems unlikely that a guy has such dreams. I can explain . These are some of the thoughts which run through my at some point in the day when I know that I am
lonely and reveries just creep in . Well , one of my wierd fantasies is that this girl is a quaker ( plays this game called quake 3 arena) !! I imagine that we fight for hours at a stretch and shes as good as me and when that happens , the tournament ( 1 on 1 ) games can go on for a long time with really demanding concentrations. The thought of such a game is in itself such a great thing that I can't how it would be if we met face to face .Yeah , I know thats wierd , but does n't everyone want to meet someone whos also great at what you are and is able to enjoy it as much as you do? ...
I guess I ve broadly covered a couple of dream types I ve had until now , one , the really small reveries which come up every now and then about something which is ready to be said but lacks the situation or the right company; two : the really wierd ones where ur deepeset ,darkest desires come true ( well not really tat deep , is it ;)) . There is one more kind I believe , which comes somewhat in between these two. It might be a really not so sensible classification like a discrete "enum" or a "typedef" , but i think its worth documenting . This usually goes like this ... I go ahead with the many rehearsed attempts at proposals and as a pleasant surprise , she accepts ! And then I live through heaven for the rest of that dream , which ... covers quite a bit of time. The time when we go out to different places to eat and we do all the silly exciting things that lovers do. When its so exciting to be out at a restaurant looking deep into her eyes when you know that some class is also going down the drain at college at the same time . Eventually it leads to a marriage and then things can go two ways , one : I can't mention here and the other I suddenly end up with a family and I have such an adorable bunch of kids whose only hero is me ! And the wife is all shy in front of the kids ... yeah , my mind is an awesome place to be and when I finally realise that it was all a dream ... I find it really hard to beleive for some time that what happened actually did not happen at all!
Those are some of my experiences , if you can call them that ... here are some of the really cool stuff as in movies/ stories I ve come across . There is this Science fiction writer called Philip K dick ... who used to write some totally amazing out of the world books. The movie "Total recall" is based on one of his books , in which there is a concept of "memory implants " which give you the impression of having had a wonderful holiday in Mars with the woman of your choice and you can choose the package you want to experience. Now that is one truly twisted story which is so logically appealing yet so amazingly out of the world , u got to watch it to beleive it. Thers is one more story in which there is a cop who is searching for a killer and after he finally solves the mystery , he discovers that he himself is the killer , yeah , multiple personalities ,memory implants , androids, robots were all run of the mill for this guy and seeing through his eyes , you get lost. Not very far behind or maybe in some ways ahead is this other writer called "Isaac Asimov" whose "Foundation " series is his main claim to fame. In one of his short stories collection I ve read one where , there is a profession for dreamers. Can you believe it ? professional dreamers ! but for what reason ? There is technology to capture what goes on while you dream as video and audio ! so the better the dreamer you are , the audience who buys your "dream " has the same experience with the same thrills . It does to come to a logical conclusion at some point of time when the real life of the professional dreamer becomes meaningless , because his first nature is to dream and then to live . Can you imagine a social life where you can't which is real ? the woman in your dreams or the woman who is your wife.... thats what happens here , and that is an amazing story. You can get that book if you tried , i think the name was "collection of short stories " or something similiar to that , by Isaac Asimov.
Well , I think I ve reached a suitable level of exhaustion from quake ,blogging and tv to put me in dream mode , so good night and sweet dreams !
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Adyar to Minerva Circle...
If you have read some of my earlier posts , and also guessed that (or know that) the wierd nouns in the title are places in Chennai and Bangalore , then you probably know that its about one of my inter city trips which always turn out to be eventful .
This time around I was beaten to the coveted train tickets by many other people with similar intentions of travel and for the first time in Chennai I was forced to explore the possibility of a private bus. There are several reasons why private bus travel is not a preferred mode for me .
First , it costs almost double of the train ticket ; second , there is usually no sleeper, there are only semi sleepers ... which actually mean that the seats recline halfway down , but for mean the sleep always turns out to be "semi" so I can't really blame the bus , it does warn me. Third, you are usually put in close proximity with someone who if fun to talk , the journey is really worth the trouble or else it becomes a real nightmare ( like the time I travelled from mangalore to bangalore and ended up behind a puky lady who would n't close the windows and literally froze me).
Getting back to the present , I always used to wonder how it would be to sit next to a woman and travel. For one thing , I really can't trust myself to make any sensible conversation when I am actually trying to ... hehe . On this day , I was about to find out . The boarding place of the bus was just opposite my house in Chennai and I had managed to pack(read dump) almost all of my stuff and get there on time . My seat number was 20 and I deposited my huge bag with the clothes under the seat and the smaller backpack on the seat . I noticed that right next to me sat a lady and she was reading some book. I settled down to a very uncomfortable journey and to make matters worse , after some time another girl came and sat on my left ! The seating was 2 + 1 , so the second lady was in the neighbouring row. My discomfiture was only increasing and I turned to my trusty nokia 2300 to keep me occupied for the time being . The radio was playing some silly tamil songs , the type where the music is totally dependant on the lyrics .I closed my eyes and was thinking how I would spend the next few hours avoiding looking at or speaking to my neighbours. As a matter of habit I don't speak much to anyone other than my friends , and even that is very less . And when the other person is a woman , its all the more difficult for me to get chattery and it usually takes me many occasions before I can be comfortable .
I continued reflecting on such things when I thought what if I need not be that way , why let such silly reasons make me change the way I behave. And so I opened my eyes and started looking out the windows on either side. We were going past my daily route to office via the famous "Nandanam signal" and onto "Venkatnarayana Road". The familiarity made me more comfortable . I had a look at the book my neighbour was holding and thinking that a safe way to make an opening was "Hi , which book are reading ? " but I ended up saying "Excuse me, do you have anything to read besides that". She smiled and said "No , this is the only one I have, you can read it if you want". Thats when I noticed that the book was a Sidney Sheldon. I was allergic to Sidney Sheldon books ... they are equivalent to the masala bollywood films , though not as bad. I said " I don't think I ll be able to read the entire novel, seems too big" which was pretty obvious , but sometimes its better to state the obvious than not say anything at all ( Like in all those team meetings where people beat around the bush to just say something for sometime).
Realising that I was about to end the conversation prematurely , I ventured with " I would like to have a look at the back cover ..." and read through the story. I don't remember the title , but the story about some psychoanalyst doctor , one of whose patients had committed murder and was about to have this guy framed , or murdered . Not really exciting I thought and said " The print is not very small , I think this can be read in 3 - 4 hours". It was improvisation, so don't blame me for pointless talk. Anyway a conversation can't go on with one person talking. I think thats the time when she took over . We started off talking about work , and then places of origin ,incidents at work , roommates , dogs , friends , family and I even learnt a bit about server maintenance and spread some gyaan about VC++ . The time the bus started off must have 9 45 pm and we started talking at around 10 15 i think and this went on until 5 minutes to 12 .
Finally at the around midnight, I started feeling drowsy and we decided to call it quits and I dozed off lightly . Dozing off in the initial phase was fun , but after some time , it got colder and the fine channels of air coming through were maing life difficult . To make matters worse , I knew that I had a shawl in my travel bag under my seat and my legs were tightly packed under the seat of the guy in front. I assumed I wouldn't be able to take it out and decided to somehow get through the night. After some more time ,it became really unbearable and I somehow managed to extricate my feet and get the life jacket ( in this case my shawl) out and looking at my watch found that it was already 4 am. After an hour of fitful sleep , the lights came on and the bus guy started shouting out stop names for the benefit of alighting passengers. My neighbour was up and she said "its terribly cold at this time" . I could n't agree more with her .
I enquired whether the bus would go via Richmond circle so that I could travel home easier. I found out that she wanted go to a place on the way to my place and I suggested we could take an auto and somewhat reduce each other's fee by going together. So we got down at a place called "Minerva circle" and were immediately accosted by 2 autodrivers speaking in tamil. She didn't know tamil so I spoke for both of us. The auto guy was asking "Yenga ponum saar, vanga" ( where do you want to go sir , come with me) . On telling him her destination , he said " Oh , neenga Madivala le yeringirindha rombo easy , straight road"(you should have got down at Madivala itself , from there it s really easy , a straight road) . I was pleasantly surprised to discover such a good natured auto guy who would n't giving out a trade secret for free. But this was shortlived , immediately he quoted an atrocious price which would have got from Chennai to Bangalore by train! Because of my dad , who is Bangalorean to the core , I knew the approximate rate from there to my place , so we decided that its better to go by bus than give these guys our hard earned money. We stood at the bus stand shivering for some time , and she asked me , "Don't you have a jacket or something ?" . I knew I had the shawl in my bag and knew it would look ridiculous , but thought "Whats the big diff ?" and put it own to trap some much needed body warmth from escaping into the morning chill. The time was still between 5 30 to 6 and we waited for a few minutes before an enterprising auto guy came right upto us tempting us like the devil saying that theres no bus at that time. But she said she knew better , so we waited for some more time. And I gave in to the temptation first and dragged her into . It was pretty reasonable , before 6 am , 1 1/2 of the meter charge , first her destination , then mine. And so we set off with bags and all through the chilly morning air. Through this short journey I was wondering how I would get her mail id or some form of communication.(I remembered a friend's similar plight on Chennai - Blore day trip by train in an ac car) . I finally decided to be proactive and offered my card and that was the end of it. Finally we reached her place and after good byes I headed home with really fond memories which I think are worth preserving in a blog and in my mind.
At the end of the journey I was wondering whether I had missed a lot of such opportunities to make friends like this all my life. It was true and I knew that it was something worth changing for the better. And also also it is better to try out new things at least once in a while , it gives you a chance to grow with each new experience.
-railmani
This time around I was beaten to the coveted train tickets by many other people with similar intentions of travel and for the first time in Chennai I was forced to explore the possibility of a private bus. There are several reasons why private bus travel is not a preferred mode for me .
First , it costs almost double of the train ticket ; second , there is usually no sleeper, there are only semi sleepers ... which actually mean that the seats recline halfway down , but for mean the sleep always turns out to be "semi" so I can't really blame the bus , it does warn me. Third, you are usually put in close proximity with someone who if fun to talk , the journey is really worth the trouble or else it becomes a real nightmare ( like the time I travelled from mangalore to bangalore and ended up behind a puky lady who would n't close the windows and literally froze me).
Getting back to the present , I always used to wonder how it would be to sit next to a woman and travel. For one thing , I really can't trust myself to make any sensible conversation when I am actually trying to ... hehe . On this day , I was about to find out . The boarding place of the bus was just opposite my house in Chennai and I had managed to pack(read dump) almost all of my stuff and get there on time . My seat number was 20 and I deposited my huge bag with the clothes under the seat and the smaller backpack on the seat . I noticed that right next to me sat a lady and she was reading some book. I settled down to a very uncomfortable journey and to make matters worse , after some time another girl came and sat on my left ! The seating was 2 + 1 , so the second lady was in the neighbouring row. My discomfiture was only increasing and I turned to my trusty nokia 2300 to keep me occupied for the time being . The radio was playing some silly tamil songs , the type where the music is totally dependant on the lyrics .I closed my eyes and was thinking how I would spend the next few hours avoiding looking at or speaking to my neighbours. As a matter of habit I don't speak much to anyone other than my friends , and even that is very less . And when the other person is a woman , its all the more difficult for me to get chattery and it usually takes me many occasions before I can be comfortable .
I continued reflecting on such things when I thought what if I need not be that way , why let such silly reasons make me change the way I behave. And so I opened my eyes and started looking out the windows on either side. We were going past my daily route to office via the famous "Nandanam signal" and onto "Venkatnarayana Road". The familiarity made me more comfortable . I had a look at the book my neighbour was holding and thinking that a safe way to make an opening was "Hi , which book are reading ? " but I ended up saying "Excuse me, do you have anything to read besides that". She smiled and said "No , this is the only one I have, you can read it if you want". Thats when I noticed that the book was a Sidney Sheldon. I was allergic to Sidney Sheldon books ... they are equivalent to the masala bollywood films , though not as bad. I said " I don't think I ll be able to read the entire novel, seems too big" which was pretty obvious , but sometimes its better to state the obvious than not say anything at all ( Like in all those team meetings where people beat around the bush to just say something for sometime).
Realising that I was about to end the conversation prematurely , I ventured with " I would like to have a look at the back cover ..." and read through the story. I don't remember the title , but the story about some psychoanalyst doctor , one of whose patients had committed murder and was about to have this guy framed , or murdered . Not really exciting I thought and said " The print is not very small , I think this can be read in 3 - 4 hours". It was improvisation, so don't blame me for pointless talk. Anyway a conversation can't go on with one person talking. I think thats the time when she took over . We started off talking about work , and then places of origin ,incidents at work , roommates , dogs , friends , family and I even learnt a bit about server maintenance and spread some gyaan about VC++ . The time the bus started off must have 9 45 pm and we started talking at around 10 15 i think and this went on until 5 minutes to 12 .
Finally at the around midnight, I started feeling drowsy and we decided to call it quits and I dozed off lightly . Dozing off in the initial phase was fun , but after some time , it got colder and the fine channels of air coming through were maing life difficult . To make matters worse , I knew that I had a shawl in my travel bag under my seat and my legs were tightly packed under the seat of the guy in front. I assumed I wouldn't be able to take it out and decided to somehow get through the night. After some more time ,it became really unbearable and I somehow managed to extricate my feet and get the life jacket ( in this case my shawl) out and looking at my watch found that it was already 4 am. After an hour of fitful sleep , the lights came on and the bus guy started shouting out stop names for the benefit of alighting passengers. My neighbour was up and she said "its terribly cold at this time" . I could n't agree more with her .
I enquired whether the bus would go via Richmond circle so that I could travel home easier. I found out that she wanted go to a place on the way to my place and I suggested we could take an auto and somewhat reduce each other's fee by going together. So we got down at a place called "Minerva circle" and were immediately accosted by 2 autodrivers speaking in tamil. She didn't know tamil so I spoke for both of us. The auto guy was asking "Yenga ponum saar, vanga" ( where do you want to go sir , come with me) . On telling him her destination , he said " Oh , neenga Madivala le yeringirindha rombo easy , straight road"(you should have got down at Madivala itself , from there it s really easy , a straight road) . I was pleasantly surprised to discover such a good natured auto guy who would n't giving out a trade secret for free. But this was shortlived , immediately he quoted an atrocious price which would have got from Chennai to Bangalore by train! Because of my dad , who is Bangalorean to the core , I knew the approximate rate from there to my place , so we decided that its better to go by bus than give these guys our hard earned money. We stood at the bus stand shivering for some time , and she asked me , "Don't you have a jacket or something ?" . I knew I had the shawl in my bag and knew it would look ridiculous , but thought "Whats the big diff ?" and put it own to trap some much needed body warmth from escaping into the morning chill. The time was still between 5 30 to 6 and we waited for a few minutes before an enterprising auto guy came right upto us tempting us like the devil saying that theres no bus at that time. But she said she knew better , so we waited for some more time. And I gave in to the temptation first and dragged her into . It was pretty reasonable , before 6 am , 1 1/2 of the meter charge , first her destination , then mine. And so we set off with bags and all through the chilly morning air. Through this short journey I was wondering how I would get her mail id or some form of communication.(I remembered a friend's similar plight on Chennai - Blore day trip by train in an ac car) . I finally decided to be proactive and offered my card and that was the end of it. Finally we reached her place and after good byes I headed home with really fond memories which I think are worth preserving in a blog and in my mind.
At the end of the journey I was wondering whether I had missed a lot of such opportunities to make friends like this all my life. It was true and I knew that it was something worth changing for the better. And also also it is better to try out new things at least once in a while , it gives you a chance to grow with each new experience.
-railmani
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