My little journey...

Konakan division. Tunnel No: 24
Length 5644 m.
Netravati express muscled its way, about half the distance of this tunnel. There are numerous such tunnels in her path, cutting right through the mountains of Western ghat. Many of the tunnels are lighted up inside, while a few are not, like this number 24.

A man was making up his way right across the huge mountain through this tunnel. He held a lantern in his hand. The train, along with all its passengers would give him a company for the short duration of time as it passes him, whether he likes it or not.. But then for most part of his journey, he is left alone...

Today, I wandered across this city along its streets. I started my journey from Trinity church road-MG road junction and ended it at the Magestic railway station. It all started with the idea of just spending a bit of time, wandering here and there all alone with absolutely no real intentions, except that a precious Sunday would not be completely wasted- doing nothing. I am jotting down down a few of the places, buildings, streets, people, I passed through, so that, later I can recollect the details of this little Sunday outing. I have seen most of these places before, from the windows of buses and autos, but never really knew, their relative locations.
I started clocking from 1.30 in the noon.

1. Mayo hall
2. Residency road- Brigade road junction
3. Mahatma Gandhi statue at the far end of MG road.
4. Cubbon park
5. Post office
6. Raj bhavan
7. The High court
8. Bangalore university.
9. XYZ street from which I purchased a few things :)
10. The over-bridges in the bus-stand
11. The city railway station

It was 3.00 by the time I crossed under the road in front of the railway station through the subway.

I knew Rajbhavan, is the key to find the way to the Magestic, as I have seen it many times on my way to the city stand. So I was following the signboards showing "Rajbhavan road" at the beginning. At last I reached a big junction, where I could not find out any signboards showing "Rajbhavan road". I was standing beside the city post-office not knowing which way to go. Then a man came to me asking " majestic elli ?? "... "maloom nahi muje". [Hey man please tell me also, if you find it out.]
I thought of crossing the long wide road which I came along. But as I started crossing, the traffic signals changed and I retreated. Just then, I realized that I was facing right towards the Rajbhavan, just a few hundread meters from it.

Magestic was quite far even from that place. I know, like the man who asked me the way to Magestic, there are many people who are forced to cover really long distances, each and every day of their life.
To me its a way to spend an afternoon. I just took a volvo back home, after having some refreshments at a costly restaurant. Walking along the over-bridge that lead to the crowded bus stand, I see a lot of people with different expressions on their faces. I should be thankful to able to smile with those people, in a world where in some people exists, who have long forgotten to smile and any expressions of joy on their face looks ridiculous to the beholder.

I know I started this somewhere, in the western ghats and ended it no where. But then it is the
way it is. See I spend another few hours writing this blog :)

Woooo,,,, !!!!!

Newborn peeping from its mothers shoulder, exclaims..

Wooooo,,,,, !!!
So rash,,,,, ???
We are waiting for you

VIMS Super specialty hospitals
*****************

cool isn't it.. You can see this advt board on the divider in the outer ring road, near Marathalli bridge junction..

in transit..

The life has been transplanted to a new city..
My days are flying.. even faster than the fading memories..

Every day comes with something new, which becomes a thing of past of on the very next day..
Adieu to Bombay and the IIT life, Arrival in Bangalore, My first day in office, Our convocation, ..

If you shut your eyes (and live in a world of your own), does it makes any difference that, if you live in Mumbai or in Bangalore??

Well may be, I will find it out in course of time..
As 'they' say its time to get my hands dirty with work..

rainy reflections..

rainy reflections...

a peek into the colorful world...

my evening out..

This was how I learnt to KISS

{Keep it simple stupid}

The teacher at the introductory session of an "Art of Living course" which was due in a month or so, just outside the campus, explained to the class of hardly 30 odd students assembled in the common room... He was explaining about his experiences...

Getting bored of sitting in my room on a pleasant sunday afternoon, when a fellow hostelite came to my room and told me to come for a talk in the common room, I thought I would attend it. There was this Federer-Nadal French open finale, which was about to start. I could see that one too. By the way I was not aware that the class was a part of the art of living course..

To tell the truth I liked the person who talked over there. There was a radiant look on his face. Whatever it is, the things entered through one ear, went out through the other... But then he didn't tell anything great or new...
Off to the French open now.. First set Nadal.. Back to to the room.. Oops the gym is open and look who is inside. Once in a hostel life I should use it. Have been thinking for while of doing some operations on my never decreasing (or rather ever increasing) tummy.

"Oh no.. Can't sweat now!! C wing pump is not working.. wtf!! I will have to walk from C wing to A wing with a bucket and towel in my hand. Better the baby grows inside.. leave this place, have some fan"..

"OMG where is my key. How will I enter this room. Not in my pockets..purse. Must be on the gym table. I have done some situps.. so may be lying there.."

{oh no!}

"It must be in that sofa, where I had watched the match"
I had put my leg above the head cuddling in it.. must have fallen from the pocket.. This has happened on numerous occasions before. But the sad thing is that I had used more than one sofa to rest my back..
"Any way lets wake up those lazy asses out there and search my key"

{oh no!!}

"Yeah it fell off from my pocket.. We were sitting on the floor.."
But the thing is that with so many people attending the class somebody must have taken it.. Art of living class was good.. It wouldn't do anything bad to me.

{oh no!!!}

"oh shit.. I must have left it in the toilet in A wing. Had just gone there, before all this things had taken place. safe place. Umpteen times I have gotten my things from there"

{oh no!!!!}

"Whats next.. crap! how will I enter my room ? Where will I go? ..What the heck these people are doing in the lab on a Sunday after noon when their friend is in trouble? These people don't have anything else in their life? .. :D."

Anyway spare key is with Nimesh. Thank god he is on his way to hostel.. But what about the spare keys of four or five different cycles I had, with my bunch.. This time they would surely kill me :(

"Lets have one more search in the gym.. The key has got several places to hide over there.."

{Still no}

"The keys are smarter than me.. hell with it..today is simply not my day.."

Hands over head.. hands over hips..

"O my father in heaven u have been so kind to me!! I know it is you who have placed the keys in my hip pocket with out even me noticing it.."

The art of living guy was telling.. " What is meant by success in life ?.. How does it manifest?.. It is a smile that is not fragile"...

I just had one :)

ps: from a philosophical perspective :- Look inside of you when you dont know where to look...

mazha..

It is raining outside my window... ( രാത്രിമഴ ..)

Cut the crap :).. lemme use this space to just mark the occasion .. ( This year, the Mumbai rains started on this day evening.. though there was a slight drizzle a few days back in the early morning..)

Remember as a kid I hated the rains as it filled up the fields in the neighborhood, and that meant no more play outside... It is synonymous with power cut in my poor state.. But then the occasional floods, which dissolved the boundaries between the roads and fields, the boundary between the canal and our orchard were merry time for us friends. Wading along the roads with water as high as your waist.. Grown-ups, small children, and of course not so small girls...

Today I simply loved the rain. Didn't miss the chance to get wet in the first rain...

ബാലപംക്തി :)

അന്നു പാതിരായ്ക്കു കോഴി കൂവി

“ കാലന്‍ കോഴി കൂവുന്നതാ‍.. ഇന്നു എന്തെങ്കിലും അരുതാത്തതു സംഭവിക്കും.. ശിവ ശിവ..” : മുത്തശ്ശി..

ആ രാത്രി കടന്നു പോയി.. എന്നെത്തേയും പോലെ.

പിറ്റേന്നും അവന്‍ കൂവി...

“ ഇന്നലെ കാലന്‍ ഒഴിഞ്ഞു പോയതാ ഇനി ഇന്നാവും.. വിധി അതു അനുഭവിച്ചേ പറ്റു.. “

പിറ്റേന്നു കിഴക്കു വെള്ളകീറി.. ജനാലപ്പാളികളിലൂടെ എത്തി നോക്കി സൂര്യന്‍ ആ വീട്ടുകാരെ വിളിച്ചുണര്‍ത്തി.. അയാളേയും...

“ ഇതു ഇനി ഇങ്ങനെ വിട്ടാല്‍ പറ്റില്ല.. ഒരു തീര്‍പ്പുണ്ടാക്കണം...“ അയാള്‍ മനസ്സില്‍ പറഞ്ഞു..

അന്നു ഉച്ചയ്ക്കു അയളുടെ വീട്ടില്‍ കോഴിക്കറിയായിരുന്നു..

അങ്ങനെ ഒരു ദുഃമരണം നടന്നുകഴിഞ്ഞിരിക്കുന്നു ....


ps: Finally I succeeded in writing something in malayalam here.. Don't know how many spelling mistakes I have made here, coz my Firefox sucks, big time with malayalam fonts.. So selected this short one which was written long back and was never seen by anyone other than myself.

I'm not very sure if my concept about 'kalankozhi' is true.. I have been told like this, when asked.. In my opinion, if u show a torch to a poovankozhi at night, it will start kooving.. :D..

humbled... humiliated...

It would have been one of the happiest days of my life. The day on which my eighth standard vocations had started. It was an year in which my fortunes took a turn for good...Two months of cricket..cricket..more cricket and only cricket.. I was on my way home after the day's action: It had been customary that my vacations always started or school days ended with us playing cricket in Palace ground with the fellow model boyites...

In an unforgettable moment, I realized all my dreams collapsed and my vocations could be ruined. . I had left the cricket bat I borrowed from a not-so-close friend of mine in the ground itself. My absent mindness once again poked me, but this time a bit too heavily. The last bit of fading hope deserted me when I found the dead and empty ground on rushing back.. Somebody had taken it..might have used it for firewood

It was one of my childhood desires to possess an SG, a GEM, or a BDM cricket bat, but my miser parents wouldn't buy me one.. And when they bought one, It was a 60 rs. rocking feather weight which could be used for playing badminton...( On retrospection I luv my parents for instilling modesty in me!! wht if they gave me all the things I desire...). Ok now coming back to the story, the one I lost was an SG, a pretty old one ..but a new one costed around 1000 even at that time. I was so affraid to tell this to anyone especialy my parents as if I believed their love for me is not worth sparing 1000 rs on such a petty issue. I was convinced that I should somehow buy a new one or return the equivalent amount.. whom to ask.. whom to beg.. I couldn't steal.. I didnt know any job nor wasn't that gutsy to take up one and make the money myself..

I hit this plan. Started filling a coca-coala ( coke returned to india around that time) can with whatever money I got.. I began looking up in all cup-boards, all table-tops for scattered coins.. Some times I would creep in my parent's bed room when they napped in the afternoons to check-up their cupboards... Was that stealing?. Somehow I never believed collecting scattered coins as stealing..

But how much one can collect that way.. Filled up the can, but it was hardly 100 rs.. The issue did settle. I did not have to use my hard-earned money.. I never told the parents about it yet..
I didnt steal either... Let's leave the 'how' part for the time being... It was settled respectably for both the parties atleast for my mind..

There are some events in our life, which we often wish should never have happened.. If ever I get a time machine to fly back in time, to erase the past, this one would have come second at the top of my priority list.. ( No prize for guessing the first.. But you will never find it out yourself..)

I do often say 'pride' is everything to me.. I give favours but never take any (pls don't misunderstand me here :) ). I never cry, never want anyone to sympathize with me. But somewhere I read if you are not rich, you cannot afford to be proud... People listen to those who earn more money.. those who are more successful in their eyes...

my experience humbled me, lowered my head for a while..made me cry... It taught me many lessons in life.

true to myself....

My last two attempts to put something down here turned out to be terrible flops. At the outset lemme pray that, it doesnt happen here. Sometimes I feel like writing abt something but then I would soon realise that I am writing bullshit.. and would stop right there..

There are some internal checks people like me always do.. I can not help it and I am conscious about it.

My first blog entry says

"Whatever I am gonna write here are some meaningless quibbles, which may or may not be a reflection of what I think, while I post.." Ofcourse one cannot write something by thinking some uncorrelated things..

what I ( probabily :D ) meant may be this

" This is my blog.. I like to express my present state of mind here. ( why people ever write diaries?? I never had one, but I always wanted to have one..) The post is such that I understand it, but you may not ( I dont have to care about you here rite?) ... So my "self expression" as inferred by you may not be same as the idea I had in mind when I expressed it in the post..

So we can say a post ( as understood by you) may or may not be a reflection of what I think while I post.

Now coming back to the original point about the internal checks... The thing I often feel guilty is that I always try to project the sunny shades of my life.. If it gets too sunny you say it as "too hot" to bear.. ( means I am flattering myself).. So sometimes when I write I feel the guilt that I am making it too hot, which tells me to quit that post... So if I want to get over this what should I do? should I allow some darker shades to get in through the filter.. May be then Its a true self expression and I need not worry about those checks and all..

May be you got the gist of my babblings.. In case not treat them as meaningless quibbles.. (actually they are :)

Else you assume this post as a sort of munkoor jaamyam [ right now I am not getting the english word for it .. Do I need to care :) ].

ps:

I didnt intend to write this ( actually thot of writing something which is not even remotely related ) when I started...I now have to finish lots of report writing work which I have to submit in 2 days and I havent started anything yet... promised to start jogging early morning tomorrow... promises to keep!! so am gonna sleep !!! Gute nacht !!

Being ur brother...

Being your brother, I am proud...

My eyes found you first, when you were a five year old. And I took your place in the
family without ever asking..
And when an age difference of "five years" amounted to more than double the age of mine, I recognized you as my dear brother...
But for you, I was more than a "younger brother". You took me to wherever you went. Playing cricket and football with your friends (You covered me in my mistakes.. but then I had thought I was upto that level) , cycling treks with your friends ( You were carrying me with you for miles when all you friends were cycling freely), Fishing in our "thodu" for hours and days ( You taught me fishing/angling.. though now I consider myself more experienced in this field), hunting birds with stones and "kyabelt" in our orchard (You made our parents hunt for "undhividu" in the Ooty market), Flying kites with our cousins which only you could make ( Teach me this some time :) ), Climbing those big mango trees in memas home ( You were head and shoulders above all our cousins... My generation fears it like anything), Squeezing each others hands ( You taught me how to suffer the pain and keep the head up.. Now I bet you can't make me yell again), Swimming in the 7 ft swimming pool when I didn't even know swimming (You taught me swimming in a matter of 3 days.. ..You even faked the instructor that I knew swimming for allowing me to get in),... This list never ends... I cherish those moments so close to my heart..

You inspired me to study... ( then I thought my achievements were better than yours..) ..You told me to "tuck in the shirt" and "wear shoes" and "comb the hairs" and always try to look good ( Then I told you I prefer comfort)...
But then you probabily have influenced me more than any one in my life.. You even shared your childhood fantacies with me.. We had fought with our imagnary enemy "prani" with those small cannons and arms which you made for us in our thoughts...Strategies that india should follow in cricket, Argentina in football, strategies for making a new saline aquarium, techniques of making traps for birds, making our parrot talk and what not have we discussed... We are good and bad at exactly the same things like twins...

Oh yes.. then there were troubled times. We stopped talking to each other for nearly three years ( from the time when I was in 3rd standard to the time you were in 10th :- may be a world record for brothers considering our ages ).. May be our egos were exactly the same.. Though we lived under the same roof with out ever mentioning each other's name I was secretly proud of you and was missing you a lot. I am sure same is the case with you, or may be you missed me more. I had this feeling that you always found in me, yourself and tried to achieve things that you hadn't achieved through me... But I let you down more often than not...

Now It's your marriage this monday (23/04/07). What shall I give as a present to you for being my guide, hero, dearest friend and above all the loving brother....

May be, Just may be, I will call you "chettan" for once** which you always wanted to hear from me. I know there's no greater present for you from me... "wish you a happy and wonderful married life" my dear chettan..



*kyabelt ( a sling, the weapon david used to kill goliath..I faintly remember "undhividu" is its the name in Tamil)
** It's a million dollar qn for me.. I hate myself :(

IF..

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
      
                                  ------ Rudyard Kipling

thanx to naresh for forwarding this :D

Remember reading this inspirational poem some years back
(may be in 10th or so)...
The lines that I liked most, at that time, were the first two lines
of the last para.

Now at this point of time, when I read this, the first four lines of the
third para attract me the most. Specifically the fourth.

I wonder how "MANNISH" I am according to the
definition in the poem.

ps:  For me almost all the lines are applicable to human being in general.
But wouldn't be nice to call these qualities "Womanish" or "Humanish"..
                      

hambeda njaane ....

"hey wht is with those senti and serious things u have struted about urself ??, I can not imagine u being sober"

got this mail from an old neighbour of mine quite some time back.. She was referring some dumb text I wrote "abt myself" in my orkut profile.

I am still the boy next door, a simpleton, who would loaft sixers ito the imaginay pavillions around him, who would dribble past the maze of unseen opponents.......blah blah.

Whatever I am gonna write here are some meaningless quibbles, which may or may not be a reflection of what I think, while I post..

Statutory warning : Assuming any kind of coherency in wht you see here, may seriously affect your mental health :D