O pen up…

………………………….continued from the previous post…………………………..

We decided to go to Sivasamudram from there. As we reached Halaguru, captain Sawan thought the road would be much friendlier towards him from there on but as he took the steering wheel, we again had to go through some rough treatment from the roads. I had a hunch that all this was just setting the stage for some more adventure we were going to experience later on in the day. As we saw the board ‘Sivasamudram – 17Km’, a look at the road made us change our plans, Captain Vivek took charge and we set off towards Maddur so that we could take the Mysore-Bangalore expressway to enjoy the ride much better. I came up with the suggestion – why not go to Mysore from there, Bangalore is neways boring. Only Vivek backed me but the rest wanted to go home and relax.

The expressway was wonderful and after covering 10Kms towards Bangalore, we stopped at the Cafe’ Coffee Day. Had some sandwiches and shakes and then Captain Sawan took the steering. He was beginning to fear that the Bangalore traffic would start from there on and spoil his fun again. We all started shouting, “take a U-turn, we wanna go to Mysore”. He refused at first but as the next U-turn approached he justed turned the car around and yeah we were ready to set on a journey to Mysore only because we had nothing else to do. Sawan let all his frustration out by riding the vehicle at speeds near to 120 Kmph. And as Mysore approached at around 6 in the evening, we all were just realizing what we had done. We were in Mysore all of a sudden in front of Mysore Palace and a tongawaala approached us offering a ride around the city. But we decided not to stay overnight and went to have some dinner at a restaurant there.

After dinner, we set towards Bangalore again just to enjoy the car ride. I had slept off in the middle and when I woke up I realised how great the day was. We entered Bangalore at around 12 30 AM and reached the Paramount Hotel in Koramangala. It was buzzing with the Saturday crowd and we got to see some well-dressed babes over there. We had some juice and set off to our homes to enjoy a nice nap after all the adventure.

Captains: Vivek, Sawan
Navigator: Anuj Khanna
Crew: Srini n Doggy

As we set off from Bangalore to Bheemeswari, Captain Vivek had ordered us to fasten our seat belts while he drove the Maruti Swift at a speed of approximately 35-40 Kmph. We thought once we leave the Bangalore traffic behind, we would be able to drive much faster but the pathetic quality of the highway gave some real good experience for us. Undeterred, we went on. We had passed through some beautiful scenic places on our way. The beautiful trees bending onto the roads to feel the speed while we whizzed past them, the beautiful rocky mountains which reminded us of Ramgadh of Sholay, some bushy mountains which bore different shades at different altitudes because of the beautiful shadows formed due to the angle at which the sunrays were touching the mountain, some calm and serene lakes which made us wonder how nature could be so still when a lot of action was going on in the city just 40 Kms away, some huge lakes with ripples resembling old-age wrinkles with lotus leaves adorning them, huge barren lands with patches of grass in different colors and shades. We all kinda became poetic as we saw our romantic sides open up.

We had decided to take halts every now and then so that we could enjoy the nature much better. Sawan, Vivek and Doggy decided to enjoy themselves at those spots by smoking their lungs out, while I would water the plants, being more nature-conscious . We listened to Radio 1 all the while which was playing wonderful Hindi songs without any RJs spoiling the mood. The songs – Rubaru Roshni, Musu musu haasi, etc just helped us savour those moments to the fullest. As we crossed some scenic places, Captain Sawan decided to take control of the vehicle to enjoy the scenery. But fate had something else in store for him. As captain Sawan sat behind the steering wheel, rough Indian roads were waiting to spoil all the fun for him. The scenic places were no longer to be seen and finally we found the narrow road that would take us to Bheemeswari and Mutathi. There again we took a break to breathe in the fresh air blowing from the mountains. I fixed my gaze on two kids who just enjoyed themselves in the warm sun running around in the barren lands.

Just then Captain Sawan decided to handover the car to Vivek so that he could take a breather. Much to his frustration, the road from there on was wonderfully smooth and more beautiful mountains surrounded us as we set from there on. We stopped near one of the banks of Cauvery where there was crocodile threat. Not bothering we relaxed there for a while enjoying the serenity, the beauty of cauvery river when it kisses the rocky terrains. From there we went to Bheemeswari and from there to Mutathi, to enjoy some more scenic places on the riverside. Sawan and Doggy decided to take a bath in the cauvery water as Vivek, Anuj and I just relaxed on the branches of a huge tree lying on the banks. The place was beautiful – still waters marked by huge trees with small patches of land here and there.

………………………………………to be continued……………………………………………………

Hi,

If you have not filed your income tax returns till now, do not worry, because as some spiritual leaders preach, worrying does not solve your problem. But of course, it is a problem.

Because there is a chance that just when you have garnered enough interest in the act of filing returns and found the right people who would help you fill the forms – Saral etc (No saral is not easy for me.. I want to file the returns just by the push of a button).. you realise that there is a hell lot of tax you still owe the Government of India and when you just convince yourself that this is something that never did belong to you and you are only paying off the money which was supposed to have been deducted at source (by the way the term ‘Tax deducted at source’ sounds like ‘caught you by your neck’ to me)… you are told that your ICICI cheque would take a lot of time to debit (or is it credit?) and are advised to get a cheque from Corporation Bank.. so you go to your colleague friend who has an account in Corp Bank… withdraw cash from your ICICI Bank and give it to her so that she can pay off the cheque to the accountant on Wednesday (when you are out to Chennai for Wednesday and Thursday on a Business visit).. just then you realise that the accountant had forgotten to mail the Challan form to you, so you would have to postpone the paying till Friday when you are back so that you can sign on the form.. on Wednesday when your friend tries to deposit the cash you gave, she realises that overnight the bank has been shifted from the location near her house to a remote location.. so she decides to deposit the cash in the ATM, but then the bank goes on strike.. she enquires the accountants and understands that it may still be OK since the cheque belongs to a government bank, so you decide to finish the thing off on Friday, but people are busy and you got no clue what to do next and when to get the stupid thing off your head, so you start blogging…

… I was walking down the corridors of Sahara desert when I realised I had left my bike keys in the floppy drive of the xerox machine lying on my office desk. What if Shahrukh gives me a call? My bike keys will start ringing waking up everyone around my desk. So I switched off the Television in my pocket. That brought to me the memories of tomorrow night, when my colleague Surya’s dance to the tunes of the novel ‘The Da Vinci Code’ was being broadcasted on Airtel mobiles. Disgusted, I switched on my TV to have a chat with my company’s accountant who explained to me the procedure of filing ‘Chhaiyya Chaiyya’ with the Road tax department. Right now, my liver is breathing very logically, so I decided to gun down my thoughts on the helicopter sailing deep under the sands of Sahara. Interestingly enough, my credit card which was buried in the Royal Cemetery ground after expiration sent me an SMS from Antarctica where Jennifer Aniston and I first met while sun bathing. The SMS was making sounds.. beep.. beep… beep.. when I woke up from my regular deep slumber in the afternoon on my office desk.

,Hi

Hi,

This morning when I was just about to leave for office, I heard this song ‘Another Day In Paradise’ by Phil Collins. It somehow touched me maybe ‘cos I have been thinking of social service lately. The following are the lyrics of the song (it has a very nice catchy tune too): 

She calls out to the man on the street
“Sir, can you help me?
It’s cold and I’ve nowhere to sleep,
Is there somewhere you can tell me?”

He walks on, doesn’t look back
He pretends he can’t hear her
Starts to whistle as he crosses the street
Seems embarrassed to be there

Oh think twice, it’s another day for
You and me in paradise
Oh think twice, it’s just another day for you,
You and me in paradise

She calls out to the man on the street
He can see she’s been crying
She’s got blisters on the soles of her feet
Can’t walk but she’s trying

Oh think twice…

Oh lord, is there nothing more anybody can do
Oh lord, there must be something you can say

You can tell from the lines on her face
You can see that she’s been there
Probably been moved on from every place
‘Cos she didn’t fit in there

Oh think twice…

This reminded me of something I had attempted to do 3 days ago but I don’t know whether it materialised. There was this dead dog lying on my favourite road – Intermediate Ring Road. It was lying there for 5 days, still nothing was done to remove it or bury it. So I had decided to call up Yellow pages to do what I can do. They gave me the number of an organization called CUPA which takes care of dogs. When I informed them about the situation, they suggested some other number of a Municipality MO which takes care of the corpses and ended up the call saying, “Very kind of you”. Felt good but when I called up these Municipality offices, I was suggested a new number each time. I called up the Koramangala number and when I told him that the corpse was lying towards the other side of the signal, he said that area comes under the jurisdiction of Domlur and gave me a new number. I called even that number, they noted down the number but Alas nothing has been done for 2 days. But yesterday I saw it has finally been cleared dunno whether it was my call that led to the action.

Neways here are my ideas about social service. I think we need an opportunity to do it. It is probably tough to be generous when a lil’ child approaches you on the busy streets of MG Road, but if you can take the time and plan something along with your peers donating your money and services, something constructive can be done. All the same the words

He walks on, doesn’t look back
He pretends he can’t hear her
Starts to whistle as he crosses the street
Seems embarrassed to be there
do apply to me and it does embarass when you see real pain but can’t do anything. Probably a change of attitude is needed. Why not take a minute out of your precious schedule to smile at the gal and donate a 1 rupee coin?

Hi,

I have started cooking recently. Well, I cannot make a lunch or a dinner, but have learnt some 3,4 dishes which will make for a good breakfast or evening snacks.

Upma! Yeah that was the first thing I have learnt. Of course I use the instant mix powder to make my dishes. But still.. something is better than nothing. Initially my upma used to be just normal sometimes undercooked. But with time, I have mastered the skill.. I use some ghee and put a little extra water so that the upma is soft and melts in your mouth. Just now, had an upma for my breakfast before coming to the office.

Maggi! Oh yeah, nowadays anyone learns cooking with Maggi. Earlier I used to make normal maggi, then I switched to Top Ramen’s smoodles, this one has better masala although the actual noodles of maggi are better. Very recently I have started making Maggi Veg Atta Noodles (Taste bhi… health bhi).. it is really tasty… Have bought a packet of Dal Atta Noodles.. have to see how this one tastes.

Puliogare! The instant mix is nowhere close to the Pulihora (that is what we call it in Andhra) Mom makes at home. But, it is ok. to make Puliogare I have learnt how to cook rice (as Pulioagare needs cooked rice). I was not so good at making puliogare till recently but the last time I made it, it tasted very good.

We (Me, Anuj, Vivek and Lover boy Satya) had a fun time at home while the World Cup Soccer was going on. We would cook some upma or Maggi or Puliogare or Macaroni or Bread/Omlette to eat while watching the match. I am the Upma/Maggi specialist. During one of the matches, Vivek was crying, “Srini.. Maggi.. Srini.. Maggi… Srini.. Maggi”. I gave a name to all my dishes.. Srinu pakam or Kansu pakam. They say, Nala and Bheema were the greatest cooks in the history and their dishes are known as Nala Bheema pakams in telugu. Neways, next time you visit my home be assured to have some upma cooked with ghee…hmmm… yummy…

Hi,

Feeling quite low today … Its now almost an year since I have started on the quest – what do I want to achieve? I did make some good decisions particularly towards November and December of last year when I decided to shift companies (some brave decisions too)… The quest has been great. I had decided to think clearly. First I let my imagination tell me what I want to be where I want to see myself.. my imagination did tell me to become a pop star, become the next Bill Gates, or invent a career for yourself like Harsha Bhogle did. So, after crossing the boundaries of reality I decided to stop it there and began looking out what is there in the market (what does reality offer to me?).. I came up with some 3,4 very practical career paths for me – one, the Pre-sales role I was doing in my earlier company which would probably help me become Biz Dev Manager or Account Manager some years down the line.. but the prospect of working under tremeandous target pressures nodding heads to some GREAT Sales managers, VPs etc did not appeal to me.. probably I would like to be a part of the selling process later on in my life, but target pressures, etc are not my cup of taj mahal tea…  Then I thought of taking up some initiatives so that I get recognition from the top management who would later assign some business critical assignments to me.. this one sounds vague enough.. I did take some initiatives which were even noticed, but later had to go through some unexpected resistance from some seniors who simply did not want my initiatives to take off.. probably I was too young to take any initiative.. the third route was to take up a separate ‘Centre of Excellence’ in that company itself so that I could carry greater responsibilities on my shoulders.. all these did not provide the basic answers to me.. where will they take me 5 years down the line? I considered some other ideas like.. shifting from IT to probably Finance.. but thanks to my laziness during MBA I did not study much of Finance.. so what was left was the regular Business Analyst role which would help me gain more experience in working on IT projects and would help me gain some domain knowledge… It kinda gave me some clear picture of what I can be 5 years later.. and there are 3,4 paths I can take up… I finally went ahead with this.. rejecting 2 counter offers from the company I left (not boasting.. but the decision indeed become even tougher when this happened.. I did not know whether to feel proud that I was wanted there or to cry that they are not letting me go by making me think again and again… but I carried on not regretting what I could have made in that company).. sometimes you have to let some bitter things in your life pass.. so that you can make a fresh beginning… I indeed made a fresh beginning, did have some moments over the past 7 months when I felt this is exactly the kind of work life I wanted.. but where to go from here? Should I continue telling myself that reality does not let you fly away with your dreams.. or should I continue to build on that dream of being someone… On a lighter note, I do not have any pressing work on my hands right now.. so I started to ruminate… but yeah, it is true that I went through quite tough time in my earlier company…

Hi,

Another monday morning, but hey this has been a decent day considering the fact that I have gone on a morning walk for probably the first time in my life. Last night I had watched the Italy Vs France World Cup Final till the end (Oh yeah I did watch the sad exit of Zidane from the World Cup in a fashion that doesn’t deserve him). But it looked like it was not going to be France’s day since the beginning when it looked like Thierry Henry picked up some injury. France did play well from the second half onwards, but ultimately Italy won it since they were the toughest of all and they had 11 good players (although they did not have any Zidanes or Ronaldinhos). Pirlo impressed me the most although Grosso has hogged the limelight time and again (gaining a penalty in the last 5 seconds against Australia, scoring a goal in the last 2 minutes against Germany, scoring the decisive penalty against France). The coach Marcello Lippi chose the best 5 performers of Italy to take the kicks unlike Domenech who left the responsibility in the hands of Wiltord, Trezeguet, etc who did not even play full 90 minutes in any of the games. Neways, I watched the drama till the end and slept off at around 2 20 AM, woke up at 4 30 AM to accompany Anuj to the Railway Station (Anuj n Vivek wanted me to show them the way till Railway Station… I was really flattered.. it is very rarely that I am asked for help in matters like these considering the fact that my sense of direction is very bad.. I owe it to my babe – Baja Discover, which has inspired me to explore the bazaars of Bangalore). We had come back by 5 40 AM or so and Vivek and I set off to a small park in Koramangala where we took a morning walk for some 30-40 mins or so. It was refreshing, I would like to continue this habit. But I almost nullified the effects of the morning walk by taking a long nap of 4 and 1/2 hours, probably I can forgive myself today since I had only 2 hours sleep in the night. I have decided to make it a habit to go on a morning walk daily and eat healthy, nutritious food. Probably I should take advice from my sis who is good at giving advices like – “You need to take xy% of carbohydrates and z% of protein in your diet”. Oh yeah she learnt all about carbohydrates and proteins when she had a baby boy, I guess all moms do learn these stuff… neways, nice morning (its evening now, by the time I finished the post).. bbye…

Hi,

Having talked enough crap in my previous blog, I did not have enough to add over the past week or so. But since I had made a decision that I would publish at least 3 blogs a week, I am bound to invent crap. My favourite pastime nowadays has been solving kakuro at this link. After Sudoku fever (which did not catch me that hard btw), I had come across Kakuro in ‘The Bangalore Times’. This is a much more interesting game because of the mathematical nature of the game. Neways, other than these 2 games, there is the age old game of crosswords which has been my favourite pastime for the past 10 years or so.. oh my GOD, yeah it has been 10 years. I have been participating in the Cryptic Crosswords Community of Orkut over the past 3 years or so. Oh yeah, I do keep my grey cells working all the time. At IIMK, we had the fever of text twist at http://games.yahoo.com. So much so that we had included this game in our inter hostel sports tournament. My team had reached some semi-finals or something but lost later on. Coming back to crosswords, I was once travelling from my home to Kerala to start off a new term at IIMK and in the train I had met this old English family – an old couple and a brother of the lady. They were solving Hindu crossword and I was doing the same on my seat and after some time they asked me if I am solving the same crossword. As I said Yes, we exchanged the answers and started solving them together. It was fun and they kinda appreciated that someone from India was decent at English crosswords. I had first asked them if they were from USA (should have got it from their accent – rather no accent, that they were British). They said “No, not from the US of A”. Neways, solving crosswords had helped me make some good friends. MV and I were a very good team at IITM and we did win some competitions at the institute level and the hostel level. We were a good team since he had a very good vocab and I was good at lateral thinking. Some friends of mine used to tell me that I can become the crossword-setter of some newspaper. Oh yeah, that would be a fun career if there are enuff bucks…