Bangalore to Kanyakumari Via Madurai and Rameshwaram

It has taken me a while to get back to writing. Actually, it has taken me a while to get back to Life itself after having my share of chasing the mundane.

The folks were in and wanted to take a train or a Bus to Kanyakumari from Bangalore -not exactly my idea of a fun Vacation -so suggested that I tag along as the designated Driver and we do this leisurely on the Swift! Boss was sweet (Writing this line as it is the Annual Review Season) and granted Leave pronto.

As these things go, scheduled a routine service for my Car and the day of service it got buggered by a bike and ended up with a proper maintenance schedule of a Week with 3 days to go for the Trip! Did not want to do this trip on a Alto-Lets go with 4 Adults and 1 hyperactive Kid so exchanged it with Ajay's Swift (TN Registration was an additional boon since it meant that one would not get too noticed while one drove down TN Roads!) and the Car held good (After a 9 Point Service and Nitrogen in the Wheels) for all of 1760Kms although the fuel efficiency could have been better!

The Drive started off well on Sunday the 25th April, we started early (about 8.00am) and hit a relatively free NH7 beyond Hosur - We carried our own Lunch so did not really have a lengthy stopover anywhere except to have lunch by the way side (Had a Large Ice Bag so there was no dearth of Supply of Chilled Butter Milk for most part of the day!)

We hit Madurai around 2PM (435Kms in 6 Hrs with a stopover of about an Hour is not such a bad thing!) and checked into Hotel Tamil Nadu - Madurai I (Old Properly but very clean and very neat and Value for Money for a Twin Bedded A/C Room with Separate Dressing Room at Rs1000/Night! - Was our acco of choice at all stopovers wherever rooms were available. You Can book online at http://www.ttdconline.com/) - We spent the evening at Meenakshi Temple and I alone spent the night at the TTDC Bar with a Rum and Coke!

26th Morning saw us head for Rameshwaram and enroute we changed plans to come back for the night to Madurai and instead decided to stay back at Rameshwaram - at hindsight a good decision - Rashmi booked the Hotel at Rameshwaram - Non TTDC as it was not available since we planned our trip and one of the reasons for the original decision to head back to Madurai instead of staying over at Rameshwaram. Rashmi also managed to get TTDC to postpone our 26th Stay at Madurai to 29th (for our return journey)

Rameshwaram was great especially Pamban Bridge which connects the mainland to the Island. The place is falling apart due to neglect but retains its original Temple Town charm.

Performed Pooja at the Ramanathswamy temple on 27th before heading off to Kanyakumari. Realised that there was a Bandh Call by the Left, so decided to stick to the National Highway rather than take the smaller State Highways and connecting roads. This meant coming all trhe way back to Madurai on NH 49B (Two Lane-but road in excellent condition and rejoining NH7 from there on, possibly an additional 50 Kms, but worth not taking a risk). Still managed to hit Kanyakumari at 3PM (Started from Rameshwaram at 1o:30am and travelled a total of 405Kms.). NOT.BAD.AT.ALL.

TTDC Hotel Tamil Nadu Kanyakumari was more...much...much...more than what I expected. Two Double Rooms for Two nights at Rs.4080 Plus Taxes gave you a Beach front property where Peacocks (in the plural and wild ones!) strolled on the Lawns. The Bar stocked Old Monk at 50 bucks a Large! The Restaurant served Indian, Chinees and Tanthoori Food - Good Food spelling notwithstanding!

The Heat was killing although Vivekananda Rock Memorial and Thiruvaluvar statue were great. The Sunrise was a dampener due to over cast conditions, but still got a good picture!

Also discovered the Suchinram Temple (The only temple of its kind where Bramha,Vishnu and Mahesh are worshipped together as a Trinity and presumably the place where Indra got salvation after doing the deed with Ahilya, hence the name Suchindram!). It's here that we found a place selling Barotta (Sounds like Beretta!) and Boori Masal (I know it sounds like a very hot and very well known place but roughly translates into Poori-Sabji!)

The Drive Back from Kanyakumari was a relaxed one, we took our time to start and reached Madurai only at 5PM. Checked into Hotel Tamil Nadu Madurai Unit II (A Star property, no less although the rate remains reasonable at 1200+Tax for a Double A/C Room. It was here that I also realised that since we managed to continuously stay at 3 Hotel Tamil Nadu's at a Stretch, we had a 15% discount due to us! (Pocketed a cool 1272/- which meant that Petrol for the Journey Back was now Free!). The Bar (Bar-Bar for me on this Trip, as you've noticed by now!) was as good as ever although costlier in terms of 65 Bucks for a large Old Monk!

Basically did nothing but sleep on this trip to Madurai, although did manage to catch up with the beautiful Thirumalai Naick Palace the next day before heading back to Bangalore.

Reached Bangalore at around 5.30pm on 30th April and headed straight for the Balcony to check on my 24 Potted plants (All survived, partly due to heavy watering and Plastic covers placed around the roots before we started our Journey!) and Buckets of Water flowed!

The body gave up around 7PM and stayed that way till 1PM the next day (A Good Massage at Ojus between 11 and 1 cured me!)

Will add details as I remember them. You can catch up on the Photos on my Facebook profile, till I figure out a fast way to load a slideshow here.

Hope you enjoyed reading this account.

The Story of My Experiments with Sex, Lies and Video Tapes!

This is a 4 Part Series where I talk about my life.

Part I: Executive Summary

Part II: How I Sleepwalked through School

Part III: How I Screwed my College Education

Part IV: My Life as as consequence of my MBA

Part : Executive Summary

I began going to school in the summer of 69! Well not really, it was more like the summer of 1984. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times - I scored a perfect "100" in Mathematics in my first term exam and an equally perfect "0" in English reading and recitation. Who said I had a way with words - more like I had a way with figures! Never mind, since that first term exam, my tryst with figures was on its way down the curve and my tongue was put to the job! I started scoring in the steady thirties in Mathethatics by the time I hit 5th Standard.

I sleepwalked through most of school before I realised that enough was enough - I did not have it in me to become a doctor, my maths score was dismal and Indian Writing in English was still not fashionable.

That's when I rekindled my fascination with Figures - of all varieties - if you know what I mean.

My ICSE scores were quite telling, a cool 86% in Mathematics - my guess is they cut 14 marks for jumping steps- this was before MCQs were part of 10th Exams and you were actually expected to follow sequential method of problem solving - no quickies, ensure enough foreplay!

My English score, much to the dismay of my English teachers who were secretly seeing the new Salman Rushdie in me, was a dismal 72%.

Well, I promptly opted for PCM, went on to crack NDA exam after NDA exam, despite the armed forces consistent failure in digging out a single Officer Like Quality in me!

Around this time I realised that there was a significant shift in my thinking - suddenly the only figures I was concentrating on were those between the pages of Playboy and heavenly bodies no more meant asteroids! To hell with Physics and Mathematics, it was all pure chemistry!

I went on to take Physics as my major subject in graduation. God only knows why - by this time I had absolutely lost all interests in deriving special theory of relativity a 100 yrs after Einstein did it! Most of my Physics Professors had not a single research paper to their credit, nor had they sired a single legitimate child - equivalent of a Boson - but they toiled on - fueling IIT dreams - mostly empty, of an entire generation.

I went on to do my MBA, topped my batch - accidentally, most likely - at least thats what half of my batchmates would have you believe! Then started my 7 year tryst with the two key discoveries of the last decade (1) The Seagull Effect and (2) The Carpenter Phenomenon! More about that later

To be continued...

Great Indian railways

Does interesting travel happen to some people all the time or do some people make all travel interesting? This post is an attempt to answer that question by way of an example, that of our recent trip to Shirdi.

Shirdi is an interesting place, by all accounts you simply can’t plan a Darshan - it happens to you. This trip proved that once more. We planned to be at Shirdi on the long weekend starting 2nd October, got the leave sanctioned, got up early on many mornings to try and book the ticket online, somehow it never happened. The next weekend, despite the shorter notice, it became possible. On the day of the travel, just about 5 hrs left to catch the train and oops, Chiya develops a fever in excess of 102F. An hour or so to catch the train and we are still with the doctor 20 km from the railway station, decided to leave everything to God (and to the bunch of medicines prescribed by the doctor) and reached the station with 10 minutes to spare! We worried all the way to the station about the fact that her temperature now was below normal (overdose of medicine? should we, shouldn’t we? what if….incidentally come morning the fever was completely gone).

Finally we settled in our compartment. We were in the same Bogey but in adjacent coupe – another way the railways makes your journey exciting. One lower berth and one middle berth is what we had – never mind that another family was completely occupying the lower berth and looked at us beseechingly so that we part with the same – we would have too but for the fact that Chiya is too small to safely occupy the middle berth with Rashmi. Anyway, I managed to be firm without being rude and the rest of the night was relatively uneventful. Not really. For one this family in question was close to 20 people and were traveling with their entire household effects – Food for 100 people (Dinner, Breakfast and Lunch and spare meals for emergencies!), plates, pots and pans, I think I saw a cow as well. Maybe not! They would have had a tough time trying to put a cow in the upper berth anyway! To teach a cow to use a western toilet must be quite a task and to flush after that an even bigger one.

Separately, scores of waitlisted passengers spent the night haggling with the TTE for a Berth. A Waitlisted passenger in AC compartment is just another way for the Railways to become profitable I guess, in the process if TTEs also make some money, why not. After all it’s a nice mix of socialism and capitalism. Maybe even communism with 100 people sharing space meant for 60!

Then again, the Indian Railways were always a social commentary. You see all shades of people and behavior to go along with it. I have had the privilege of traveling in all compartments right from the IInd class to 1st AC. On the one extreme is - a towel thrown in through the window reserves a berth in the best of times and a place to squeeze in in the worst of times? The other is the extreme of snootiness, you not only get a extremely private (read boring) place to yourself, you also get people to wait on you, if only that pot bellied, smelly attendant could be replaced with a Flight attendant from one of the premiere airlines (who knows, you may still – looking at which of those institutions is more profitable). In the first instance, you can shamelessly borrow a Beedi from one of the co-passengers or maybe even tobacco to chew, in the second, in all probability you can peacefully have a heart attack!

The best way to travel in the railways is of course Sleeper class – people are friendlier, most people offering you food are harmless (although occasionally it may be drugged) and unless your planets are aligned in a negative manner, you will find very few cockroaches to share your food and your berth with.

You can safely chain your luggage to any and all existing hooks and pillars without for a second feeling typically middle class!

The best Platform Food and tea is also normally available to Sleeper Class passengers – Tea in Kullars (Non existent mostly, despite Mr. Yadav’s tall claims), Piping hot Bread Omelets, Puri and Sabji both dripping tons of oil – if someone could figure out how to tap into the railway toilets, I am sure it’s a perpetual supply of endless energy, separate the oil and use it directly as fuel and convert the rest to Biogas! I can see the headlines too, “USA signs a historical S1, S2, S3 deal with the Indian Railways despite strong Chinese opposition – Green Cards to Railway Vendors, Citizenship to Indian Middle Class, technology transfer from the Indian Railways. The military is concerned as this is transfer of duel use technology – Potential Biological warfare implications, especially since culturally we fart quite unabashedly."

The biggest advantage of the Railways over the Airlines is that your entire family can see you off right up to your seat.

Oh to see those multitudes, all with valid berths and most with valid platform tickets jostle at the gate as if someone else is going to occupy their seats.

If you are a 20 something good looking female - actually that’s sexist, it happens to quite ugly looking young men as well – no way you can safely travel on the Indian railways unless your Father, Mother, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunties, childhood friends and the next door auto rickshaw walla come to see you off. They must all enter the compartment, check that all fittings are in order, fan is working, and adjacent seats are occupied by “families” as against hormone pumping, young, lone “deranged” traveler of the opposite sex!

Thank God! I married and have a kid as well, gained some respectability, fathers of all supposedly good looking girls from Patna to Panaji have since sighed in relief. So have I, having suffered the humiliation of being considered a potential “Majnu” or worst a rapist! The added advantage for me is that now, if (academically, mind you, no real intentions) I do decide to lech and ogle, I need to be worried about only Rashmi as against some girls entire family tree since independence!

To be continued…

On the Road in Bangalore – Version II

I know, I know. I wrote a similar post a while back. However, if you need a different perspective, I suggest you undertake this journey. It’s literally an eye opener.

The day started on a high note. Chiya started saying OK instead of her normal “nahi” (No, for the uninitiated in the Hindi Language) this morning.

A Unisex Parlor had this hilarious signage outside.........Facial, massage, shave, ladies hair cutting, gents hair cutting, baby cutting (Huh! What was that again?).

Why am I surprised? During my last job, every day on my way back from office this thelawala was proudly selling Gobi Mangurian to unsuspecting victims!

Then the day deteriorated. I stopped at a traffic signal. Saw a guy selling flags (he was from a minority community whose patriotism is often questioned in these difficult times) and proudly lowered my window to buy some - one for the house, one for my car, one for Rashmi’s car, but not if they cost more than 20Rs a piece, see how we set a limit to our patriotism – when thak-thak – (incidentally, thak-thak reads as think tank on my MS Word dictionary and there is a meaning to that as well) someone knocked on the other window – one of those numerous beggars who run an alternate economy on each traffic signal in the city – a woman, no less (at least one job where women are being given better than equal opportunity in this country) and let me be honest, my first shameless thought was – there goes a clean, disinfected window. That was before I noticed the child – maybe 4 yrs old, ordinary, just like hundreds of others roaming the streets, conceived precisely to do this job, in a country which guarantees education as a fundamental right to all children of the age of 6 to 14 years, and I don’t think his luck was going to change in 2 yrs time, for him to claim his legal rights. In principle, right or wrong, I don’t support begging, not that I do anything else about it either, so I shooed them away and watched that child limp away (yes, he was limping and I could make out that one of his nails was sticking out of his toe – accident? Perhaps), till the signal turned green. Green happens to be one of the most significant colors in our national flag and it provided me my escape route.

I did not buy the flag. It cost less than my 20 Rs patriotism limit. I was wondering what that child, who will not be set free, ever, was thinking about all this? When will his independence day come?

A few days before Independence Day, a rich man’s kid (I don’t resent him that) won a Gold medal in the Olympics (I am proud of him) and we set out making him richer still. State Govt. after State Govt. went about showering lavish cash rewards on him (taxpayers money, mind you – money better spent elsewhere, and not necessarily even on sports in a country where education is not available to all). Most newspapers covered him on multiple pages for multiple days, while little kids like the one I wrote about earlier were hawking the same newspapers on the streets.

They knew not sports.

They knew not Olympics.

They knew not Gold (most definitely not) and

They possibly would neither have heard of the Govt. or from the Govt.

And of course there is the electronics media, spends more time covering events like two celebrities kissing (breaking news, no less) than they would cover the plight of these kids. I wonder where the sannate ko cheerti hui sanshani, that we need so much is.

Happy Independence Day everyone!

EDIT (19th August)

My Apologies to Times of India. They came up with a wonderful campaign called Teach India http://www.teach.timesofindia.com/ on 15th August.

Shobha De published an Article on TOI on 17th August which bears an uncanny resemblance to this post of mine! (Mera Bharat Kahan - TOI 17th August, Page 12 - Read it @ http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOI/navigator.asp?Daily=TOIBG&login=default&AW=1219145335343)

A Journey, a Destination

It’s been a while since I last posted. In all probability, the next post may take a while as well. I intend to make the most of this post and say as much as I would like to.

First things first, I was in between jobs and time was at a premium. I started my Career in the Cement Sector, Moved on to Apparels and have now joined a Beer Company. In short, I have now worked in Roti (not really, but allow me the poetic license! and the nutrients are in place), Kapada and Makaan industries. What do we need to survive in this world? Just about that and possibly a credit card and an e-mail ID can be thrown in and it would be perfect! So that sets the agenda for the future, Banking and IT to be the future entries on my CV. Sheer genius, I must say!

To begin at the beginning, after three and a half breath-taking years which I thoroughly enjoyed - except maybe the last 6 months - my last job had started feeling like a chore and it was time to move on, which I did, and here I am, drinking too much beer and it’s not always free, contrary to the expectations of my over enthusiastic beer guzzling friends and family.

One of the first “events” in my new assignment was to take a flight out of the much maligned Bangalore International Airport, which I did, having some trepidation about distance to airport, time taken etc. The distance was exactly 50 km point to point from my house to the Airport – one point to the critiques. However, the time taken, I realized was not significant, 03:11:23 to 03:54:04 – one point to people who believe in taking flights which maximizes the productivity of the day. My suggestion, don’t take any afternoon flights; you won’t get much work done at your destination anyways. In short, it’s a good airport, yes the distance is too much, and yes the connectivity can be bettered, till then, smart travel should help and you can always catch up on your reading, which we hardly ever do nowadays.

The circuit started with a flight out to Cochin (God’s own country is Gods own country!) followed by a flight to Chennai culminating in a day spent at Pondicherry (This isn’t so far removed from God’s own country, is my opinion – The Kind Sir has Dual Citizenship, I guess). The trip followed on to Hyderabad - and yes Rajeev Gandhi International Airport is a few notches better, aesthetics wise than our very own BIA. Shopping Experience, however, is better (make that significantly better) at BIA. But yes, taking off from Hyderabad and landing at Bangalore is decidedly a humbling experience.

I have taken other flights since, and my feelings about BIA remain the same.

I was in Istanbul in the last week of July, the city of two continents, but hardly in an identity crisis. In fact it was a city so sure of itself it gave a new definition to confidence. Wide, well developed roads (with footpaths – Having been in Bangalore for 4 years, I always thought footpaths were a figment of my imagination, mind you). Tramways, people always on the move and of course the belly dancing, you must admire the women for their fitness level; actually, you must just admire the women! Wow! I think I can get away with saying that the Istanbul Roads are inspired by those bellies!

The ride from the Airport to the city is brilliant, you catch the city in its various shades while the Sea remains a constant.

We flew Gulf Air, and on three out of Four Gulf Air Flights we took, the Cabin Crew was brilliant (or seemed brilliant in relation to the fourth one). Unfortunately, on one of the flights, precisely, Gulf Air Flight from Istanbul to Bahrain on the 30th of July (GF 44, 1500 HRS Istanbul Time) – The Airhostess had an attitude bigger and heavier than the rock of Gibraltar and the supervisor was not much help either. Reminded me of traveling (long, long ago, the memory is so feeble) on a state transport bus between Delhi and Roorkee, believe me, the experience is comparable. No, cut that out, the State Transport was better. I would like to fly Gulf Air again, but currently am working on the probability of encountering the same crew again! My math’s a little rusted.

Thankfully, the next stop was BIA (Bahrain International Airport, to be precise) and the Duty Free there makes you forget all hardships. We shopped till we dropped, especially since we had 4-5 hrs to kill. And this you must note, after three days at various locations, we discovered free drinking water here, a total savings of 2 Euros – just right for my coin collection.

Good Old McDonald’s was there in its full glory. Just never realized that a Burger would cost so much!

A last word, I suggest the Indian Govt. change the value of the Rupee to about 100 Euros, otherwise every time you spend money while you are abroad, you spend only small change (an Euro at a time for about 500 times) there and come back home having lost a months salary!

Jumping Out of Bed to Come to Work

Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep! It went. No it wasn’t the alarm clock; it was Rashmi Sterilizing Chiya’s Bottles in the microwave. It was also my cue to “Jump out of bed to come to work” as DM used to say when asked about our Vision Statement. Unlike Dm’s context, this wasn’t a sign of my engagement levels however. This just meant that today, I was feeling good about life in general.

Then again, who wouldn’t feel good about life, if he is woken up from a deep slumber in which he was having erotic wet dreams about submission of proofs to claim income tax exemptions, trying to figure out where to find another 20,000 Rs to max out the 100,000 Rs exemption under 80C, all of this just to save some more tax. Incidentally I was the same guy who just about 6 years ago was taking home about 100,000 Rs a year and there was no tax to dream about. No Tax. No Tax Exemption. No Wet Dreams.

Who wouldn’t feel good about life to know that today there are no bottles to sterilize, not much at least. Wouldn’t you feel good about life knowing, intuitively, that despite the Dhobi not showing his face for close to three weeks - the three weeks during which I managed to use up all my extra advantages of working in the Apparel Industry – you will find your clothes ironed today? Top this up with that all important morning cup of tea that is on the bedside table, ready for you, when the solitary gas cylinder has been empty like Aurangzeb’s Harem for close to a week now. (You got it, we have mastered the art of microwave cooking, a strange mix of scarcity and plenty teaching you a few things).

Hey! I forgot to say thank you. Shit.

I put the last batch in the microwave and set it up for four minutes. Four important minutes during which I manage to brush my teeth. Yes. I know. Absolutely brilliant I am.

I come out, and the rice is cleaned and soaked, ready to be cooked. 20 minutes in the microwave, add Puliogere Mix and Oil and Lunch ready! Last night we had pizza, very cheesy, very different from Puliogere. How people change overnight.

Rashmi is ready by now and Chiya is up and ready for her massage. This is my cue to mix up 180 Ml of Warm water and Lactogen in her bottle, give it to Rashmi and run towards the bathroom, before she sees me and insists on me picking her up. No guarantee however that She won’t knock on the bathroom door for the next 10 minutes (she uses the door stop as a knocker, in case this bit interests you.)

We leave home, drop Chiya at her crèche and I get dropped at the Auto stand, say good bye to Rashmi and spend the next five minutes haggling over price to M. G. Road (with the guys who want to come to M. G. Road, in the first place). Rashmi waits patiently. Finally, a nice soul agrees to a premium of 10 bucks over meter (10 bucks that I fleece out of Rashmi) and away we are to our respective destination. She in an Alto, I in an Auto not much difference but just an alphabet. She also takes trouble to call me and tell me that this Auto is not Euro IV compliant and is smoking like a chimney. Two thoughts come to my mind; one, why do people quit smoking when all day they face this on the roads and two, wherein the Tata Car!

Didn’t I tell you a while ago that I was feeling good about life today? Well, the feeling continues and I do a bit of useless maths in my head, 10 bucks extra twice daily, for on an average 200 days a year, is 4000 Rs, give or take a few hundred. Oops, that’s more than twice my annual premium on a 10, 00,000 Rs, twenty year, Term Life Insurance Policy with LIC. There goes the good feeling out of the non existent window of the auto.

I cross BTM Signal, go through Maruthinagar and come out near the St. John’s Hospital Junction and there’s perfectly healthy trees cut all along the way! I count at least five. Mr. Pachauri, Ms. Narain, I hope this is on your radar.

I decide to count people instead.

The well built lady all of 80 kilos, eating what looks like half a dozen Rice Idlies in one of the numerous Darshinis that I cross everyday. “Ma’am, the Idlies will be there tomorrow as well, relax!” I think.

I see a man on a Honda Activa in one of the signals I stop at, stretching his shoulders and back. In obvious pain he is. Terminator, his helmet says. “With that kind of pain at 9:15 in the morning, you are the one getting terminated friend”.

I see a school girl, desperately trying to cross the street at a zebra crossing, while civilized men all around, in their civilized cars, rushing towards their civilized jobs, do their best to drive right over her. The elderly Traffic Cop helps – these guys are not all bad, I realize – he is in mortal danger himself!

I see the meter, disinterested, its running fast as usual. There goes another Insurance Policy. I get back to counting people.

I reach office.

Same day, same shit.