Trip to Mysore - III

It was a hot day, and the moment we reached the palace (South Gate), we wanted to drink something. What better than tender coconuts. We were disappointed with the rates though. They kind of exploit the tourists. Point to be noted: The entrance is the South Gate, where you get tickets, to visit the palace.

After the tender coconut, we headed towards the ticket counter. As soon as you enter the gates of the palace, on the right is the camera counter. Visitors are supposed to deposit their cameras in this place. Photography is not allowed inside the palace (bah!!). Everybody has a camera in their cell phone these days, and nobody stopped them from clicking pictures inside. I still dint get the point, why cameras weren’t used, because we can use flash, may be. Anyway, let’s go a little further.

As we near the entrance of the palace, there is a footwear stand. No footwear allowed inside the palace. It’s not a temple, probably they just want to maintain the cleanliness of that palace, and it’s pretty cool inside, so it’s ok.

Note: Both the camera and footwear stands are for free, so no money making there.

As soon as you enter, there is a counter where they have audio guides, Rs.100 per system. You can also hire, certified guides, but we chose to go with audio guides this time (experience sake). There are 21 parts, the numbers are displayed out there to let you know which part of the guide to listen to. The moment we enter, we first go to the place, where the dolls are kept. This is the place, where the family decorates the palace with dolls during Navarathri/Dussehra.

We then enter the corridor, adorned with beautiful paintings. If you really love paintings, you can spend a lot of time here. The audio guide actually explains a lot of paintings, the details in those paintings, which you might overlook. We enter the centre hall, just look upwards, and you see awesome glass paintings adorning the ceiling. The flooring is so amazing; it’s so colorful, you are thankful that you aren’t stamping these beautiful tiles with the foot wear. It seems weddings and birthdays and other important functions were conducted here.

Next we move to the gallery where the paintings of the Royal family are kept. Sigh!! You wish you were a part of them. Who knows, maybe we were in our previous birth, if such a thing existed. Then you move to a gallery of gifts, given to the kings (Wodeyars), by the places they have visited. There was so much of Sandalwood in that glass chamber, such intricacy in sandalwood, hard to find in our daily life. We then saw some more paintings and then moved to the courtyard. The palace has a mixed architecture. European, moguls, Hindu, and you can see all these in one place. It’s a good example of unity in diversity.

History: It seems there was a wooden palace earlier, and it burned down during one of the weddings which happened in the palace. The queen then made sure, no material which can be burnt would be used in the making of this palace. So the palace is kind of fire proof.

Ok... Now in the first floor, In between, we go through rooms where the furniture and other articles are kept for display. Once we cross these we come to a big Durbar Hall, which is open to the public. (Like Deewan -e- aam).

Again there are paintings, infinite mirrors (mirrors kept in front of each other, you get infinite number of images. The arches in this hall are so identical. It looks so beautiful. From here you can see the vast ground. Just imagining, the king sitting right in the middle, with dignitaries sitting around him, the ministers and important people next to him. The ladies of the palace sitting in one place, and on the ground, you see hundreds of people flocked up just to see the king, and the proceedings. You just get goose bumps. The carvings on the ceilings are definitely worth an observation.

No wonder it took 15 years to build this palace. From here we move forward and find the elevator, which was used in those times. Right after this, there is a passage which leads to an Ivory Door. It seems there is a Ganesha Temple behind this door, and when the fire broke down the whole palace, this temple remained untouched. Even today, the Royal family visits this temple. It's not open for the general public. Then we come across 2 doors which carved ivory. It seems these doors won a prize sometime in early 1900s. Next you go to a smaller Durbar Hall (like deewaan -e- khaas). It is so colorful. Just like those you would have seen in the movies. Aah!! I really wish I could have lived there, the chandeliers, the mirrors, the carvings on the pillars. Slowly, steadily, you move out of the palace.

After living through the history, for a couple of hours, you feel bad that you are out of the magnificent palace. You can go to the rose garden, there are some beautiful flowers. You can go to the gate and collect your cameras. Then you can click as many pictures you wish, outside the palace. There are quite a few temples inside the palace gates; you can visit them if you have time. We had seen these earlier, and since it was lunch time, stomachs were pleading us to give them something. Friends wanted to have pizza, so off we went to kalidasa road and reached Pizza Hut.

We had yummy lunch of pizzas and pasta, and left to Bangalore, but not before another pit stop. We planned to go to Shivana Samudra... But did we actually go there or take a detour, will be for the next post... Time to say Good Bye Mysore... and off I drifted off to dreamland in my sleep.

Trip to Mysore - II

Mysore is hotter, compared to Bangalore, but since Bangalore is also hot these days, we were used to sleeping without AC, so hadn’t booked the AC room. But, I guess we were lucky, due to some confusion in the booking, the hotel agreed to give us AC rooms with no change in the Tariff. We were glad about the AC, now with AC on and spreads to cover us, we had a good night sleep.

Usually on trips, I wake up early, one is don’t want to miss out on the beautiful day sleeping, second, I can anyway sleep in the car while travelling. But this time I slept till 8.00 AM. We were ready by 8.30, finished our breakfast of Idly vada (not so good), but no other option as we were not in the city, and that our next stop was a bird sanctuary.

By 9.30 AM we reached Ranganathittu. We had to pay Rs.50 per person, as entrance fee, and if we wanted the boat ride, it was again Rs.50, and the car parking was Rs.30. So after paying Rs.430 we headed to see the birds. We were lucky that the moment we reached the place of boat ride, we were about to start, so no waiting time. The boats are covered on top, so no worries of getting baked in the sun. We occupied a nice position. It was a ride for 20 – 30 mins. I have never seen so many birds in a natural habitat. There were birds from Siberia, North America, Japan and lot other countries. Actually I don’t really remember the name of the birds… But yes, very well remember the Painted Storks (easy to remember).

According to the boatman, feb- july is the season to visit this sanctuary. After this the eggs hatch, and the birds fly away with young ones, and you hardly see any birds there. One of the visitors asked, “how do you know from which place the birds come from?”. The boatman said, there are trackers tied to the legs of these birds, and when the report comes, that’s how they get to know.

One of the interesting things which we found was the way these birds were protecting their eggs or young ones in the nest. They would spread their wings in a weird fashion, we try to get a pic, couldn’t get it though. But it was as if mom would hold her saree pallu to safeguard you from sunlight (well similar way). Parents I tell you, ever protective.

Well, all this while we have been talking about birds, you might ask no animals at all. Behold, there are crocodiles in the same river. Yes, same river where we are boating. But, they keep to their business. They are usually under the trees, waiting for the eggs/ young birds. It was a treat to watch the crocs in the river, since a couple of them were moving. Anytime we see these creatures in the zoo, they are sleeping as if they are dead… For a while, I stopped watching the birds and was observing the crocs. It’s a little difficult to differentiate them with rocks around. Again some people had questions on, what will happen if it attacks us. The boatman was cool about it and said, they usually don’t attack, unless we are on their way. So we were making fun, what if all the crocs gang up and try to overturn the boat. We knew it wouldn’t happen at that time, but if it happens I wonder how it will be.

Once the boat ride is done, we came out and saw the watch tower, may be around 15 ft or so. We went up there, couldn’t see much, but enjoyed the moments when the birds were inflight. Tried clicking photos, but they are too fast, and we dint have too much time to capture the right moments. After this, we just took a stroll and were out of the sanctuary and headed towards the city…. Next stop was the famous Mysore Palace….

Trip to Mysore

Let’s go somewhere, anywhere.. Just need a break, this was my slogan whole of last week.

Since we were to go with friends, getting everybody on board was not so simple. Timings, locations had to match. Finally, it was decided that we would go to Mysore on Saturday afternoon and return Sunday night. My first reaction was – “Mysore??? Again!!”, to this my husband said, you just wanna go somewhere right, so I reluctantly agreed.

I love Mysore, the place has so much to offer, but I have been to Mysore so many times, we were there for a couple of years, and it was just 2.5 hours from our house, why go there for a whole weekend. But then again, any break was welcome, so we were all set by 12 noon on Saturday.

As it happens in most of the trips, we started a couple of hours late, and we were kinda hungry the moment we had started. But we thought of stopping for lunch in an hours time. NICE Road is a boon, we reached Mysore Road pretty soon, and then the usual scenery, of paddy fields, some shops here and there, Wonder La and Innovative Film City advertisements. There was nothing exciting or new about this stretch. By the time we reached Bidadi, we were hungry and decided to have some chocolates, until we reach a proper lunch place. Around 3.15 we reached Kamat Lokaruchi. The food here is mouth watering. Kamat is on the expensive side, but once in a while it’s still ok. We had the North Karnataka meals (speciality here). After half an hour of eating, we left for Mysore.

By 5.30 PM we reached our hotel, White Orchids (Bombay Tiffanys Franchise). It was nothing great, but 1200 per night with AC was something we did not want to complain. Anyway all we needed was to sleep that night in the hotel.



We freshened up, and were ready to visit the famous Brindavan Gardens. On the way clicked we encountered a beautiful sunset. So we stopped the car and took a few pictures. The road is pretty ok, to KRS Dam(Krishna raja Sagar Dam). Much before KRS, nearly 2 kms, we were stopped by a few people for parking tickets. Once we got this, on the left we could see the beautiful Dam. After parking our car, we walked for 5 mins to the entrance. Since it was a Saturday, there were too many people. One of us went to get the entry tickets and paid for the camera entry fees (Rs.50) I wonder why so much for the camera. Once we entered, it was the usual mela kind of environment. Lots of eatables, chilli Bajji, Gobi Manchurian, noodles, Banana Bajji, Aaloo Bajji, Onion pakoda, popcorn, American sweet corn… we dint eat any of this, coz of hygiene concerns (bah!!). We took a litre of bottled water and went near the bridge which would take us to the north side of the garden.

There is a ferry (Rs.20) one way which will take you to the other side. We took the ride, just for the sake of it. It was fun. Though we have been here multiple times, we never took the ferry, to avoid standing in the queue, this time we thought, whats the hurry… So after 10 mins of waiting, we finally got to travel in the ferry, and it was fun watching hoardes of people walking on the bridge. We reached the other side in 5 mins, and then as we got down, till we reached the place where they had musical fountain, dint I tell earlier, this was the sole reason people flock the north garden J

Anyway, enroute we saw some cute little fountains, we were telling a friend of ours, this was the place, so many movies were shot, with the celebs. Actually it was a lie. All this shooting was done on the south Gardens, which was the other side of the ferry ride, from where we entered. Anyway, we took a couple of hazy pics, and negotiating the fountains spray, we reached the amphitheatre around the musical fountain. They were playing Saare Jahan se accha (the last song the of the fountain performance)



As soon as this got over, people got up and moved outside, we got on to those steps, and caught up with a nice place, with good view of the fountains. In 5 mins, the fountains took off with a famous Kannada Song. It was a nice attempt. As soon as this got over, there were a few hindi songs, and then a instrumental music piece, and finally Sare Jahan Se Accha Hindustan Humara Humara…. It was a nice feeling. There were whisteles and shoutings and lots of excitement.

After this got over, we headed towards a ice cream and had yummy Nutty Chocobars. This time we decided to take the bridge, and since it was nearing 8.30PM, the crowd was not too much. We had a nice walk on the bridge (not the dam), and then went out to have hot bhuttas/JoLA (corn). We then left to Mysore City to have dinner.

After much discussions, we decided to go to Metropole. This was once a palace, and now being used as a Star Hotel. Food is a little expensive, but the ambience is awesome, Food is good too. The restaurant is in the courtyard of the palace, so you are out under the sky full of stars. The highlight this time was the IPL match was on too. So good food, great ambience, a crowd which would react to every wicket and every four or six, made up for a great dinner.

We came back to the hotel, and contemplated if we should hit the bed, or play for a while, and play it was, and so we played cards for an hour and then left to our rooms, for a sound sleep, with plans to going to Ranganathittu Bird Santuary the next day.

Trip to Sravana Belagola

It had been around 6 months, since we went for a trip. It was even more exciting as we were going to travel around 140km on bike. We had a holiday on Maha Shivarathri and we thought any Shiva temple would be overcrowded, so we headed to Sravana Belagola.

G (hubby) and me started from our place at 6.45. We are pretty close to NECE road, so we took that, toll upto Tumkur Road. Other way you can go is via mysore road... But I felt this was better.. Straight nice roads...

We were near Nelmangala and then from there we took the NH-48. It’s a straight forward road after this. Though the construction going on there might result in some narrow lanes, but the condition is really good. Around 8.00 we took a break on the highway. We stretched a little bit, after a 5 min break again continued on NH-48. We reached Mayura Veg Hotel around 9. Stopped there for breakfast. I had plans of taking pics of what we ate... But as soon as our spl.Masala Dosa, vada came we just digged in. I remembered about pics, much later :). We were there for nearly an hour.

We were 32 kms from Sravana Belagola. I was pretty excited, since I had never been to this place. Enroute, we saw so many coconut groves, it can easily be mistaken to be Kerala. By 10.30 we reached the place. After searching for parking, we finally entered the temple.

It’s a pretty huge rock, with some 500+ steps. There, we got to know, we had to leave the footwear below, you can wear socks though.

At the foot of the rock, I just asked God for some strength to climb those steps... I took breaks while climbing on the pretext of taking photographs, and we finally made it to the top. And what do we see there... more steps to see Gomateshwara. These steps were a little steep too, but since it was windy and not too hot, it wasn’t too difficult. Before going for these were saw few inscriptions which were from the 13th century, 16th Century, they were being preserved with Glass covering. since we dint understand much of it, we moved to see the World Famous, Gomateshwara.

As we entered, we saw a 60ft Monolith, we wouldn’t be as tall as the feet. But frankly, i wasn’t awestruck or anything like that.. Ofcourse it seemed huge etc, but dint have my jaw dropping. This is the highest Monolith in the world. And if you see it that way, its really amazing, what they have done with a rock. Anyway, the view outside itself made it worth climbing. We spent a lot of time clicking pics in the temple. Then we came out and again clicked lot of photos of the view from the hilltop.

As we came down from the main temple, on the left was something called Chennanna Basti. There was mantap kind of thing and a long pillar. Spent some time there and then went to the next Basti. We were on the top around 2 hours. We finally got down, freshen up and did a little shopping. Had some tender cocnuts and then saddled up to leave.

Actually, there is another hill, chandragiri, right in front of this, but you again need to climb this, and you can do all this if you have the whole day. We had to come back by 6(prior appointments), hence left the other hills for the next trip.

We had packed our lunch, but then thought we will have it in a hotel enroute.. We missed the Maura hotel which we went to earlier, now there arent many descent hotels on this route. So we then decided to finish off the packed lunch which we had got from home. There are certain farms enroute, else there are lot of empty bus-stands, if you want to have a picnic lunch. We stopped after an hour's ride, in one such place where there was water availability. It was good to have Chapattis and Tomato curry, on a highway, just the 2 of us. It was kind of romantic I must say. After the lunch, our next stop was on the NECE road for a short 5 min break, just to stretch ourselves. By,5.30 PM we were back home.

For those who are thinking if it’s worth going to this place… I would say, definitely, you won’t regret going to this place, just make sure you have the stamina to climb those 500+ steps, and ofcourse if you are going in summer bear the heat. But it’s pretty windy, so it’s still ok.

Go for it.

Reality!!!

Sundar was bored, lying in the hospital bed for a week. Vishal and Sudha entered the room with the doctor. They had good news for Sundar, he would be relieved from the hospital that evening. The doctor advised him that just because he was going home, didn’t mean he could do anything. He had to listen to Vishal and Sudha, he needed atleast a month to recover from the illness.

The couple took care of Sundar like their own. They, spend most of the time in that month, taking care of Sundar. Once in a while, tears filled up his eyes. He wished, if only he had kids of his own, he wouldn’t have had this situation in life. He was so grateful to them.

**

A month passed, Sundar was allowed to take walks twice a day. The early morning walk was something he was waiting for. He reached the park, his friends were waiting for him. He was totally fit. His friends were happy to see him healthy.

Sundar declared “Only becasue Vishal saab and Sudha bibiji took care of me so well, I am in this condition”.

**
At home, Vishal was talking to Sudha “Sundar, had taken care of me since my birth. If only, I could tell him, I am his son, his blood”

Revenge

Bali placed the cube in the warehouse. The cube was so heavy, but he couldn’t complain. It was his job to provide for his family. Every day, he had to go to the place where the huge cubes were, pick up as many cubes possible. He worked in a organized company, they were very strict. He couldn’t jump queues, nor could he overtake, he had to do his work in the time allotted to him, in the sequence he was assigned to.

The work gave his family the security in terms of basic needs, but there was a lot of risk. Everyday his wife, Kyra was worried, if Bali would come back home alive. The path he went on everyday, had lot of dangers. There were huge structures there, one wrong step could be the last one for him. She used to work with him before they had the kids. Now she had to wait until the kids could fend for themselves to help her husband.

********
Suri, Bali’s collegue came to Bali’s wife with a sad face. She had one look at the face and understood. Teary eyed, she mustered some courage and asked him “How?”

Suri said “we were at the garden”, there was nobody at the tea table, there were lot of sugar cubes. Bali was so happy, he mentioned that today would be an important day”
“as we took the cube and started back to the warehouse, a kid screamed looking at the train of ants. His mommy just got a mug of water and poured it on us”

She couldn’t hold her tears anymore. Suri tried to console her. “We are sorry, the impact of water was so hard, we couldn’t save Bali”

********
Two days later, Kyra was in the house where Bali was murdered. She found the mother and bit her on the eye. The lady started screaming. She caught hold of Kyra, and mashed her up. Just before that, Kyra was shouting “Bali dear, I punished your murderer”. The lady threw the dead Kyra in the dustbin. She walked out of the room muttering “Too many ants in this house”

Super powers

Nikhil was supposed to go to his friend’s house, to collect something. Since he had to walk alone for half an hour, he could use his super powers. He would just get his spider powers out and jump from tree to tree or building to building. He would still take the same time, he would if he had walked. It gave him a sense of satisfaction though.

Another day, when he had to walk alone a lonely road, no buildings, no trees, he was disappointed. He decided to try something new. He got out his boat, and started rowing. He had the long oar, so that he could do the rowing both the sides. He loved his new discovery.

One day, Nikhil’s mom asked him to accompany her to the tailor shop. He never liked going with others, he loved his solitary walks. He couldn’t refuse his mom, and went with her. Mom was surprised to see Nikhil not chatting with her, instead, she saw him rowing a boat, or his spiderman actions.

That night she told this incident to her husband. He calmed her down saying “10 year old kids live in such imaginary worlds.. Let him come out of it, when he wants to… Let him enjoy his ‘Super Powers’”

He then turned to Nikhil and winked at him.

You are so beautiful

“You are so beautiful, so damn beautiful” by Akon was playing the car, Ram loved to say these lines out loud to both his girls. Just then Sneha said ”come on, you can’t say this to both of us. You have to decide, whom you are gonna singing this to.” Ram just smiled. Aruna said, “Ofcourse it’s for me dear, I came into his life much before you came, so it has to be me”.

Sneha and Aruna argued as usual, until Ram stopped the car and said, if they dint stop fighting over the song, he would take them back home and the dinner at pizza hut would be cancelled. Both the girls loved pizza, so they just turned their backs towards each other and sat in silence until Ram took them to pizza hut.

They ordered their favorite garlic bread, and veggie supreme pizza. Ram wondered, how both of them liked the same things. As they were about to take the first bite of the food, the song played again. This time Ram decided, he would sing it to them in a proper way.

He took sneha’s hand and said “You are so beautiful” and then he took Aruna’s hand and said “so damn beautiful”, both the girls giggled and gave a peck on Ram’s cheek. They left the place after having a wonderful meal.

Ram had a superb evening, on one side was his princess like daughter, and the other side his beautiful wife.

Names

Today was the day, Neethi Verma would get to know her workplace in the office. She was quite amazed by the cubicles, and the sound of the keyboards. The manager took her along with 2 guys to an empty cubicle. He said “Folks, this is where you will sit until you are allocated a project, please feel comfortable. If you need any help, you can let me know”.

Both the guys opted for seats in the cubicle, Neethi had no option to take up the last place in the cubicle. She switched on her system, the name of the previous user came up on the screen. “Hmm.. Rohit Sharma.. nice name” she thought and then logged in with her new id and password. She was excited as this was her first system in the corporate world. Every new application she tried to login had Rohit’s name flashing on the screen. In the evening she told her friends about this little incident. They finally concluded, he was probably the previous user of the machine and that’s the reason it was coming up.

Days passed by, Neethi got busy with her project. One day she noticed a drawer next to her table. She realized, it was for her use. She felt stupid for not realizing this earlier. She always kept her stuff on the table. She opened up the first drawer, to find a lot of notepads and pens. Just when this happened, a friend of hers came to her place. She saw the stuff and took it out. Neethi stopped her saying it was not hers, so it would be better they don’t touch it. Rekha did not care about it. She read out the name on the notepad. “Rohit Sharma.. hmm.. that’s why you dint want me to touch it”. Neethi dint understand what Rekha was talking about. She snatched the notepad from her and read what was on the Notepad. She felt so embarrassed. She just put it back and told Rekha she had no idea about this. Infact, it was the first time she had even opened the drawer. After Rekha left, Neethi was very curious. She opened the second drawer, this was pretty big, it had a pair of shoes and also a t-shirt. She assumed these also belonged to Rohit. Neethi was now concerned, it was more than a week since she had moved into this place, and this guy Rohit never came up to claim his things. She sent a mail to him, asking him to collect his stuff, from the place.

Two weeks passed, there was no response from Rohit. Neethi was frustrated that she couldn’t use the drawer as it was full. Also, she dint feel it was right to use it when it already had somebody else’s stuff. Few days later she started cribbing about Rohit. Her friends referred to him as RS. Every evening they would ask her if RS came to claim his things. Neethi was now used to this. She dint mind Rohit’s stuff in her place.

A month later, when she logged in, she saw a mail from RS. He apologized for the delay in replying, he was on vacation for a month, and he now had to request for a new drawer to keep his stuff. He had asked Neethi, if she could accommodate the stuff for some more days, until he could get his own drawer. She had just completed reading the mail, she picked up her coffee mug and got up from her seat. As she turned around, she saw a guy standing behind her. She just blurted out “Rohit”. He was quite surprised, “Hi Neethi, I hope I haven’t left any of my pics in here. How did you know it was me?” Neethi just smiled and said it was wild guess. He thanked her for keeping the stuff with her and also allowing him to keep it for a few more days.

A week passed, they would occasionally crash into each other, just a smile or a hi, would be the conversation. All her friends had started building their love story. It seemed more like a movie than what could happen in real life. Every time Neethi heard her friends talk about her and RS, she would just smile. Following Monday, when Neethi came to office, she saw a big dairy milk on her keyboard. She was surprised, since it was not any special day. She dint understand who could have kept the chocolates at her desk. As she opened her mail, she saw there was a mail from RS. He had thanked her for all that she had done. He had to leave to a different location the previous weekend, hence dint get a chance to meet her personally.

Neethi opened the drawer, to keep her stuff in. Everything was taken out there was just an envelope in there. She opened it. After reading it, she just smiled and kept it back with all other stuff.

Four years later, all her friends received her wedding invitation. Neethi Verma weds Rohit Sharma. All her friends came to the wedding, claiming to tell her “we told you this would happen”.

On the stage was Neethi, happily married to Rohit. One of her friends came up on stage to wish her. She introduced her husband to her friend. “Rohit, meet my friend RS. You remember I had told you I have a friend with the same name as yours”

Workload!!! No matter what

Two ladies were having a conversation in the office pantry(where we have aquaguard, coffee machines)

Lady 1 (L1) : I don’t like this location. Workload is too much
Lady 2(L2): Yeah!!! Park5 was much better.

L1: So many people are leaving the company, its making our load even more
L2: 3 people from our team left last week.

L1: But one of them was caught stealing, who asked him to steal.
L2: that’s true…

And they went on for a few minutes regarding their work load, then the house keeping ladies went on with the description.

L1: I am the only one who has Garbage cleaning work this week, I think I will ask for easy mop.
L2: I have hand pain since yesterday, I don’t want easy mop
L1: Ok.. then I will take easy mop, you take the garbage cleaning
L2: No, that’s very boring…

I could have heard further, but my bottle was full and it was time for me to go back to my desk.

I was just trying to compare their conversation with what we have

Person 1(P1): I don’t like this project. Workload is too much.
Person 2 (P2): Yeah!!! My previous project was much better.

P1: The attrition rate in the company is too much.
P2: So many from our team have quit in the last month.

P1: I think one of them was taken off due to disciplinary action taken against him
P2: hmm…

P1: I am just fed up of this maintenance project. I think I’ll ask for a project change
P2: I am bored of testing too. I think I’ll ask for prod support for a few days.

Conversation continues…

I couldn’t help but smile thinking about how similar our way of thinking and environments are even though the kind of work we do is totally different.

Full Circle

“I don’t want to leave my friends mamma”. Anu was telling this to her mother since morning. “We don’t have an option Anu; daddy has to leave to Bangalore. We can’t leave him alone. Can we? ” Radhika tried convincing her daughter. Anu went to her room sulking.

“Daddy, why do we have to leave now? Can’t we atleast leave after my summer vacation?” Anu was asking for the nth time that day. Satish answered very patiently, that they would come back someday just to meet her friends. Anu wasn’t convinced, but she had no option to get into the cab, which would drop them to the airport. Her best friend Ramya, had come with her dad to see off Anu. Both were hoping against hope, that Anu would stay back. Since, that did not happen, they exchanged their address and promised to write to each other.

It was 6 months, since they reached Bangalore. Anu had new friends here. The memories of the old city had started to fade out. Radhika was happy that her daughter had stopped whining about moving to Bangalore. She then realized that life was a full circle. 10 years back, when she got married to Satish, she had to move out of Bangalore. And today life had brought her back to the place where she started. She like Anu, had got new friends in the new city, in the process, she lost touch with her old buddies. And those were the times where communication was not so easy. Today, when she came back to Bangalore, she dint know what her old buddies were upto.

Radhika was busy shopping and she spotted a lady, who looked very familiar. The lady also happened to be staring at her. In a few minutes, she was gone. Radhika was trying to recollect who she was. On the way home, she passed by a coffee shop. That was once a hangout place during her college, she realized all of a sudden, the lady she saw earlier was one of her best buddies. When she got married, they had promised each other that they will stay in touch. Today, when they saw each other it was just a faint familiar face.

At home, Anu was playing with the gift Ramya had given her, Radhika was having tea and thinking about her past. She realized, all her old friends were nothing more than strangers now. She decided she will try to find out the phone number of her friends and try to rekindle the friendship they had. Just when she got up to do something about it, she thought she has to do something else.

She got a notepad and a pen to Anu, she also had an envelope with Ramya’s address on it. She told Anu “Don’t you want to tell Ramya, how much fun you are having with the gift she gave you. I think you should thank her for this”.

Anu smiled and said “Oh yes mamma! I almost forgot to write to her. Can I ask her to come over to Bangalore when she has holidays?”

“Definitely dear” Radhika said and walked towards the phone, to get back to her past.

Huff!! Puff!!

Suresh knew his dad wouldnt be coming back home until 6.00 PM. He had 2 more hours. The offer his friends gave him was good. After all it would take him just a few minutes. "Few minutes, few puffs, your dad wont know" is what one of his friends' said.

They stood in the corner of the road, near the pan shop. All of them had one each in their hand. They were very busy creating circles in the air. Just then, Avinash signaled to Suresh, his dad’s cab was taking a turn. All of them threw their cigarettes down and blew it off. Suresh, was confused, how his dad came home early that day. He was hoping, his dad hadn’t seen him smoking. He went for a round with his friends, reached home after half an hour. His dad was sipping the hot filter coffee and snacks which his mom had prepared.

Suresh tried to escape his dad’s eyes and was about to snoop into his room when his dad called him.

Dad – Suresh, I don’t like you to waste my money. Infact, I don’t like any of the guys wasting their father’s money

Suresh – Sorry Dad

Dad – Here, these are the cigarette buds you guys threw, after spotting me. I have got them back to you.

Suresh (puzzled look)

Dad – When you earn, you can waste your money. This is the money I have given for your books and studies, but if you want to use it for smoking, utilize it correctly. Please don’t waste the cigarette.

Saying this, Dad placed the newspaper with the half burnt cigarette buds on the table and went to his room.

Suresh could see the disappointment in his dad’s eyes. He promised himself, he would never let his dad feel so bad, ever again.

Security!!!

This incident probably happened a month back. I have been so busy these days, no time to blog.

Anyway, we went to see a movie in PVR Gold Class. As we entered, we had to go through the routine securtiy check. Then we made ourselves comfortable, in the lounge, a guy came with our welcome drink. As we were having it, we realized a movie star also entered. The people there were ready with a bouqet. What amazed me was, she was allowed inside without any securtiy check. And the guys who came with her, did not have to go through the security check.

I asked the guy who served us the drink, what if these people had a bomb with them. He just smiled at me, embaressed and with a "What Can I do?" expression.

But isnt this a serious threat. Sometimes people do anything for money. If you are harassing common people for security checks etc, why are the rich and famous not made to go through the same ordeal?

Why these double standards? What kind of security is this?

FMS

This happened during one of my trips during Engineering. We were about to have lunch (lemon rice and curd rice – packed from a caterer). It was in those paper packets, no fancy packing, no spoons.

All of us sat in a group. Since we were tired of playing around, as soon as we got the food, we started digging our hands and filled our mouths and started chewing. One friend of mine, opened the packet and was just staring at the food. I couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t even touched it. This was the conversation we had.

Me : Hey S, are you not hungry?
S : Very much
Me: Is something wrong with the food?
S: I don’t know. I haven’t tasted it yet.
Me: You don’t like rice?
S: I like rice, esp curd rice.
Me: Ok. Then what’s stopping you from eating the food.
S: Can I get a spoon?
Me: Emm.. I don’t think we have spoons. We have anyway washed our hands, why don’t you just eat without the spoon.
S: I can’t
Me: Look S, where are we going to find a spoon for you in the middle of the forest. Come on, go ahead and start eating.
S: I know, but I can’t
Me: Why?
S: I don’t know how to eat rice, without a spoon.
Me: You mean you have never had rice using your hand.
S: yup.
Me: You mean, never, ever?
S: yup
Me: Ok.. This is a situation. No problem. I will teach you to eat using FMS.
S: FMS?
Me: Flexible Mobile Spoon :) Our palm and fingers
S: ok.. lets try
Me: See the incentive is you get to eat your favorite – Curd rice.

After a few minutes, S could manage to eat using his FMS and thanked me a ton, for helping him and not letting him starve.

Benadryl!!!

Usually medicines are always taken with a disgusting expression. Medicines are supposed to be bitter. But when we have cough, there is one sweet medicine, which even acts like a sleeping pill and makes it so difficult for you to wake up in the morning. Its as if you have a hangover. I am not a alcoholic person, but then can I say for sure? Am I 100% non-alcoholic.

Ofcourse I don’t drink beer, whiskey or the likes, but that doesn’t rule me out from not having alcohol at all. Its not in the recent times. Since childhood, all of us have had some taste of alcohol, or we have liked it in some or the other way.

When I was kid, it seems when the coughs were unbearable, doctors used to prescribe – “Doctor’s Brandy”. This is supposed to be very good for the cough, and is seemed provided good relief.
And now, its benedryl. It sure is very tasty and effective too. One shot of this, oops I meant one sip of this, and you can be assured of a cough free deep sleep.

Incidents related to bendryl;

We were in mysore, and since I had cough my friend insisted we get benedryl. In a week the whole bottle was over. The reason was, my friend also had a sip of it everyday, inspite of she not being sick. I tease her of being a alcoholic. Till date, we laugh about this. Infact, even yday we discussed on how tasty benedryl is :)

I had come back from US and had jet lag, then got cough here. I started taking benedryl, I used to sleep at 11.30 and till 7 in the morning, I would noteven be conscious (deep sleep you see). I wondered how my jet lag vanished so quickly. After I stopped the medicine, I used to be awake like an owl, or even if I slept, I used to wake up a couple of times. I cursed benedryl for curing my cough.

Few months back, I was suffering from dry cough. We had a bottle of benedryl, I drink my sip and then my husband says, Its been ages since I have had a drink and gulps a little bit. Result is past 1 week, our eyes struggle to open even if its 7.00 AM. Now I have got used to this, and our plans of going for a walk a 6.00 seems like a dream.

Hail Benadryl!!!

Snakes

Our house was next to the GKVK forest in Bangalore. There were lot of eucalyptus trees and the forest was pretty dense. Whenever they cut down these trees, lot of snakes came out of the forest to our area. We could hear lot of snake stories. Infact, when I would come back from college, mom would have a snake story ready. That was one of the reasons, why everybody had a mesh door in front of the usual wooden door, so that they could keep that open for the air circulation.
One day, both the doors were open, and when mom came out, she saw a big, fat snake, resting under the table in our verandah. It seems my parents called the snake catcher, and with great difficulty, they got this out.

One of my neighbors had left the water sump (tank) door open to get something from inside. By the time she came back, there was snake which had fallen inside the sump. When I came back from college mom told me this, and I went to see the snake. That was probably the longest snake I had seen other than snake parks or zoo. Then they had to call people and get the snake out. They also got the whole water sump (tank) cleaned up.

I haven’t seen that many snakes as much my mom or my brother have seen. But I did encounter a snake story once. Let’s say I was just saved.

It was on a weekend, my cousin brothers had come home for lunch. Usually my elder brother is fond of pulling my leg. He kept on teasing how I would believe anything he would say when I was kid. This had gone for a couple of hours, after which I gave him a warning that I would never ever believe whatever he said. As they were about to leave, we all went outside to see them off. My cousin was near the gate and I was near the door. We have a big garden, so he just happened to see something and shouted at me to move. I dint move an inch. He again shouted saying there was a snake, and asked me to move. This time I was determined it was a prank, I dint move. My other cousin saw this and pulled me, and the green snake just jumped. It would have hit my eye, if my cousin hadn’t pulled me. We were in a shock for a few minutes, and later I kept teasing my cousin, that his pranks would have cost me my life, if not for my other cousin. Till date, we remember that incident and laugh about it now, but it was pretty scary when it actually happened.

Even today, I am not scared of seeing snakes, but if its gonna attack me, I can scream like crazy and run around like a mad woman to save myself. By God’s grace, I have never encountered a situation like that except for the instance I mentioned above.

Power Cuts!!!

Summer is associated with many things – Heat, Sweat, Cotton Clothes, Mangoes, Juice, Cold water, Vacation (for kids), First rain and with rain comes power cuts.

It’s so stuffy inside the house during summer. We still manage to watch our favorite TV programs with the help of Fans or for luxurious ones, we have ACs. Sometime around 6.30, when there is either a cartoon or a movie coming up, mom is just done preparing some yummy snack, there is a power cut.
Instantly, people in the house scream “Oh no” or “Che” or “S**T” etc in chorus. Probably if you can listen carefully, this happens in all the houses in the neighborhood simultaneously. Everybody starts fanning themselves with the palms, or they grab the day’s newspaper. After a few minutes when the heat is unbearable, one by one they open the front doors and go out near the gate. Slowly, the kids in the neighborhood come out and start playing; the aunties come out with a cup of coffee in their hands. They start of with the conversation

Lady 1: There is so much of power cut these days
Lady 2: Yeah, it’s too hot and stuffy inside
Lady 3: I haven’t finished my cooking. I needed the mixer, now god knows when the power will be back
Lady 4: (showing off) I thought such a thing would happen, so I finished cooking beforehand
Lady 5: I just came back from office and now there is no power, this is unbearable.

All this while, they don’t realize that they are actually socializing, instead of sitting in front of the TV, which hogs all the attention most of the time.

Give them 5 minutes, and then a different set of conversation starts and this time it’s interesting. They are either talking about the corner house, where new tenants moved in or it is about Savithri’s daughter coming late to the house on a bike with a guy or discussion of a new recipe.

The men folk might just prefer to stand near the gates and watch people walking up and down. Very few actually socialize, when they do, its either politics or sports that they catch up on. Not very juicy to overhear what they are talking about.

The kids get together with their tricycles and bicycles and start going up and down the street as if they are chasing a thief. If there is enough light, they would even gets the bat and ball, to start with the gully cricket.

When this hustle bustle is going on, there is a bulb flickering somewhere, signaling that the time for gossip and time pass is getting over. In a few minutes, the road is lit up again. The houses have their tube lights flashing. Everybody, now comfortable in their chat, start back home, with a content of having a nice time during the Power Cut.

SubWAY

I had been a year since I joined the comapany, when I heard a Lady say, the food in subway is really good. I knew she had been to US, so she was talking about Subway over there.

Background : Subway meant those underground crossings which we have where pedestrians are not allowed to cross the road. Ofcourse in Bangalore they have these hawkers selling pety stuff over there, so I assumed she meant the food she got there was good. I thought, lucky people, they get good food even in subways, all we get here is peanuts/cut guava/ or something which doesn’t look very healthy enough for us to eat.

I never discussed this with anyone to clarify, what subway food was all about. Few months later, I was in US and one of my friends suggested we go to “Subway”. I was thrilled, and wanted to see, what it was all about. Off he drove and stopped in front of a sandwich shop, which was called “SUBWAY”. The conversation was like this:

Me: Here?
Him : Yeah… this is Subway
Me: Oh (laughing at myself)
Him: It’s ok right? Or you want to go to Indian restaurant
Me: Its fine… I can try it out.

The first time I dint know what to order. I couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about. Bread and few veggies, so why go ga-ga over it. I dint go to subway for a long time after that.

Later, on a trip, one of my friends showed me that we could add sauces to it, have it with veggie patty etc etc. I started loving the sweet onion suace, slowly mustard. They even started with a broccoli cheddar soup. I liked that too…

Today when I was ordering in subway, when I asked for sweet onion, southwest, spicy mustard and I saw so many people in the queue (esp new to the corp world).. I wondered, when I was like them, I dint even know what this thing was… How things have changed!!!

Also, now I know Subway is just not the underbridge, but it’s a food chain.

PS: Hey the train system in New York is also called Subway… So if there was a Subway within Subway.. how would you say it?

Great Achievement

The project was due in a week and all his project mates had completed their part. Mayank was the only one, who was to finish his part of the project.
Though all his project mates were his friends, the anxiety if Mayank would finish his part was straining their friendship. He was so engrossed in what he was doing, that his mom was to remind him multiple times, so that he could have his meals on time.

The model would be evaluated by a panel of 3 people.

Mayank had spent days on the design. It had been days since he met his friends. Anytime, his mom came to his room with food, he would drive her away. At times, she would scold him, that his health would be spoilt, if he dint eat properly. He dint understand, how his friends implemented it so easily, while he was struggling to put everything together. The day before the project was to be submitted, Mayank finally completed the project. He informed his friends, and they were relieved too. Finally, Mayank and his friends submitted the project on time. They had to wait till the evening for the evaluation. All the worries which surrounded Mayank for all these days had come to an end. There were smiles of relief in his group. At 5.00 PMthe principal came out with both the science teachers. They were the panel of judges. Mayank and his group had won the science project competition at school.

For Class VII students, it was a great achievement that day

Autowallas

There was a discussion on how autowallas in different metros behave. This just reminded me of a particular incident which happened in Hyderabad. This was more than 2 years back.

On Monday morning, I reach Hyderabad bus stand. As soon as you get down, auto folks start with their bid.
Everytime, just to check, I used ask a few people, how much they would charge. Are you people thinking about meters. Come on 6.30 in the morning, who would use it. Meters don’t start their work until 8.00 AM

Near the bus the rate would be – 200
By the time you reach the entrance of the busstop, the rate would be reduced to as low at 150-120

After a few weekends, I found another way. I would go midway in auto, from there would take a bus to my place. The reason was, I dint know which bus to take from the busstand.

One fine day, when I was looking out for an auto, found another girl who was looking for one, to the same area. So we decided we could share the cost. One guy agreed for Rs.70, we thought Rs.35 is a fair deal and got in. Once we reached the place, we gave him 70 and he started shouting at us, saying its 70 per head. We told him that he never told us this, and since it wouldn’t cost that much using meter, we were not going to pay him 140 total. He threatened us that he wouldn’t let us get down. We were pretty aggressive too, and we asked him to drop us back to the busstand, and we wouldn’t pay him a paise for this wonderful behaviour of his. After much argument, he finally left us after charging us Rs.5 extra per head. Next week onwards I was extra careful and confirmed with the driver much ahead about the cost per head.

PS: I know Hyd has shared auto system, but this was not a part of the shared auto thing. Also, I have had auto problems in most the of the places I have visited… So its nothing to do with one place