Bangalore again :D July 6, 2007

Yours truly is travelling yet again. This time to Bangalore. My favourite city in India! Yea yea, I can hear all of you out there who crib and complain about the traffic and the smoke and the costs. But I.Don’t.Care. Its wonderful to me and I am going there. Yaaay!!

On a different note, a trainee in class lost his mob today. He was pretty upset and quite distracted. Yesterday in the cab, I found a colleague’s office id and emailed her today saying I have it. Now it brings me to a question (oh my god, isn’t this line completely non-connected? anyway..)

Q: Have you ever found something you are sure is valuable to someone else? Have you lost it yourself before handing it over to that person? (No, I didn’t lose her id!)

Just wondering..

My First Trip Abroad – Part III March 16, 2007

Still in the US, still taking in the smells and sounds and tastes and everything connected to these three.

First things first. I bought a camera!! (Drums rolling in the background with a huge chhhhng sound at the end) Its a Nikon Coolpix and the entire purchasing time took 12 mins. I had checked prices online and Circuit City had the cheapest rates. They also had a store very close to our hotel so me and a friend went there in the evening and there! I was the proud (and extremely excited) owner of a new camera. Here is what I got.

Its everything I always wanted. Compact, a good brand, and hmmm.. a camera!! I am not much of a photographer and don’t aspire to be a great one either. But definitely intend to put this to good use. Just wait and see, you guys. Oh , by the way I got it for USD 130 which roughly comes up to INR 6000. Wanna know more? Go here.

Now for the first ever pic taken with my camera.

Tadaaaaaaaaa

That’s a very tired me after some shopping, walking entire stretch of China Town (yes, there is one in SF too) and dinner at Ming’s Chinese Restaurant (my Indian taste buds refuse to like anything made out of my home country, pompousness I tell you)

And now for the first picture that I took with my new camera.

Tadaaaaaaaaaa Tadaaaaaaaaaaa

Doesn’t it look nice? Its a small portion, rather one part of a wall, in the Hilton Lobby and I took it from where I am sitting. Quite pleased with myself I should say.

Its midnight now and some crazy colleagues are calling me to go to Starbucks! So gotta go now. Meanwhile, stay safe all of you people out there.

My First Trip Abroad – Part II March 14, 2007

March 12th 6:00pm (Yes, its still 12th of March and if I never go back home, I actually get an extra day in my life. Swell, huh?)

San Francisco Airport : Me trying hard to search within for excitement. I even searched for some jetlag. I am such a loser, neither was that strong a feeling. Went on to immigration, got my luggage and stepped out. There were people to receive us, with buses that had wider windows and plusher seats than we had seen in Singapore. I was alarmed to find that I was also a little hungry. It was shameful, considering that I had done nothing but eat all through the flight. I was proud of the fact that I had lost sense of time and how long I had slept or stayed up. Now that my friend, is a pretty cool feeling.

It was a chilly ride to Hilton. I counted 3 Indian restaurants, 4 Indian-Pakistani restaurants (we live in much more harmony here in the US) and a zillion Thai retaurants. There is one right opposite The Hilton.

There was much confusion at the check-in counters with the receptionists confusing our first names for our last names and getting the gender wrong for most of us. Managed somehow to lug ourselves up to the rooms. Oh oh, I have to tell you this. My room is on the 10th floor and we got here on a high-speed lift (remember the Blackberry-Hutch ad? Where a boy says ‘high speed lift – to get daddy to office fast’).

It was 8pm by the time I scrubbed myself clean and put on some warm clothes. Ravenous by now, I set out with two friends, in search of food in this big, new, colourful, city. We spotted a Thai Restaurant called Arroi and stepped in. Had amazing food, pretty close to the Indian flavour and spice.

Walked/jogged back (not cuz I had suddenly decided to work out on-the-spot, but cuz it was c-o-l-d and I had to remind myself I actually had feet and they need to get some blood too) to the hotel and crashed into bed.

My First Trip Abroad – Part I March 14, 2007

Hyderabad – Singapore

Disclaimer: The post is long, potentially boring and most probably not what you want to know. But anway..

Sunday 11th March : Normal Sunday with a twist in the end. Woke up pretty early cuz I wanted to take a long nap in the afternoon to fight against the jetlag we were so constantly warned of. Idled around, made lunch, ate, read for some time, bathed, watched ‘Father of the Bride’ (It was so much funnier when I watched it 2 years back) and then hit the bed. It was around three and I closed my eyes, patiently waiting to fall asleep. 3:10, 3:15, 3:20.. Nothing. Read for some more time. Nothing. Changed the sheets and pillow case. Nothing (And this always works!). Tried warm milk. Yes, you guessed right. Nothing! Gave up at 4:30, sighed and made sure I had packed everything.

The hyderabad airport was full of Googlers by 9pm. We had travel agents handing us forms in various colours with all possible info to be filled in. We positively drove them mad with our quesitons and doubts and fussing and pouting (yes, that too)

After a long wait and snacking on ridiculously over-priced sandwiches, we finally boarded. It was 00:30 when we took off. Off to Singapore!!

Unnecessary Trivia About Me #1 : When I was a kid, I always wanted to marry someone in Singapore and get settled there. I had no idea whatsoever how it looked or where it was, I just wanted it!

Monday 12th March : 7:30 am – Landed in Singapore. There were travel agents there too with placards that said ‘The Google Group.’ Yes! That’s us alright. There was a free (very attractive word, especially if you have had the experience of exchanging fat wads of Indian currency for 2-3 notes of foreign ones) 2-hour bus tour around Singapore.

8:45am : Trying hard to keep eyes open. Oohh.. the travel guide had a very soothing voice with a nice accent. The bus had wide windows, plush seats and just the right temperature to doze off. Sigh. Saw major part of the city instead.

Unnecessary Trivia About Me #2 : I have heard how clean Singapore is and how you can practically roll on the road and not get dirty. To be very (very very) honest, people there litter too. They do. I found pieces of pater, wrappers, matchsticks and the like on the roads. Now the worrying part is, I was glad when I saw them. Weird?

10:13am : Reached the airport. I saw a Starbucks coffee shop near the entrance and bought a coffee mocha for 4.5$. Felt all sophisticated and nice inside. It was really bitter and I didn’t like it (sorry, Starbucks people) Looked around in vain trying to spot my friends. Nobody in sight. Finally I ran into a few people who were planning to go to ChinaTown. On an impulse (which also made me feel very adventurous and gregarious), I set out with them. With no Singapore dollars in my hand, it was dumb!

Had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in ChinaTown and roamed around the place. There were loads of shops with Feng Shui stuff and paintings. Was really tempted to buy a painting but there is no way I could have got it back here without it crumbling to pieces cuz they were not framed and were on recycled paper that was very brittle.

3:00pm : Reached the airport, freshened up and went around looking for the free internet computers that I heard were around. After 25 mins of searching I finally found them. I had to stand and use it so couldn’t blog (which was the originial and only intention. I am telling you, I am addicted to this thing). Ended up checking my mail and sending some.

Flight took off from Singapore at 5:00pm. I was half asleep when I got on board. Oh boy! Here comes the much undesired jetlag.

Some stuff about Singapore Airlines

1. They have pretty airhostesses who wear a printed dress in blue, green and red that’s very pretty. Even their footwear is made to match these designs.

2. They have an great collection of in-flight entertainment ranging from latest movies, games, TV shows, music, radio (that has a tamil song station, thanks to all those tamilians in Singapore)

3. They have six different kinds of cuisine available during each meal. We tested the stewards’ patience by swapping seats now and then which totally confused them as to who wanted what.

4. There is no way you can sleep peacefully without disturbances cuz they are going to come your way asking you to upright your seat, fasten seat belts or trying to feed you. The ‘do not disturb’ stickers that they themselves stick on your seats on request, don’t really work.

More posts on Mountain View and the rest of the stuff coming soon…

The Bangalore Train Journey February 28, 2007

This is the story of a smart young girl (no points for guessing who) who went to Bangalore by train last weekend. She met a few ineteresting, good, bad, ugly people during this journey.

Girl Mistake #1

Buys tamarind rice for 12 bucks from Kacheguda Railway Station

6:27pm – Train arrives

6:35pm – Girl takes her seat, quite happy that she got herself a lower berth

Shy Guy enters – 6:47pm

Girl checks out Shy Guy, slightly worried whether he is going to be in the opposite lower berth. Shy Guy totally ignores Girl, takes out his phone and makes a call, smiling shyly at intervals.

Girl switches on her music and stares out the window, hoping some family joins them, even if that means 2 pesky kids come along.

Prayer unanswered. Enter Cute Guy at 6:56pm. He checks out Girl (or so she wants to believe) and sits next to Shy Guy. Before Girl gets a chance to confirm that Cute Guy is actually cute, disaster strikes. Enter Loud Guys 1 and 2. The kinds who are friends but look strikingly similar, have white cell phones and wear pink and purple striped tee shirts (wide vertical stripes). And brown hair. Girl’s hopes of a family joining her is nipped in the bud.

Girl Mistake #2

Checks out Cute Guy a tad too much. Now he thinks he is Shah Rukh Khan (or whoever else you think is good looking) and has an arrogant expression. Sheesh.

Loud Guys 1 and 2 check out Girl (this time she doesn’t want the attention). Girl stares out the window and pretends to be with Shy Guy (remember him?)

Girl Mistake #3

Fishes out her notepad and writes down stuff furiously, hoping to turn it into a funny blog post later (No, she is not crazy, just very very passionate). Now that just seems to be getting more attention from Loud Guys 1 and 2, weird look from Shy Guy and a disinterested yawn from Cute Guy (who cares about him anymore)

Girl quickly puts her notepad away, tries to eat her tamarind rice, realises it too sour (and has pieces of hair in it), gets Shy Guy’s help (suddenly he seems cuter than Cute Guy) to throw the rest out the window and continues to pretend she is with him, secretly waiting for Loud Guys 1 and 2 to sleep.

Here ends the story Girl had written down in her notepad. The story has no specific ending but it has an epilogue. The fate of each one of the characters.

Cute Guy: Has an early dinner, gives another disinterested look at Girl and goes to sleep on his upper birth.

Shy Guy: His name is Venkat, he works with Wipro and offered to buy Girl dinner when he goes to get some for himself from the next station. Girl politely declines.

Loud Guys 1 and 2: They happened to be brothers, had a large amount of tamarind rice (homemade) with them and insisted Girl share it with them. They were nice people who definitely were loud and probably didn’t speak english, but so what? Their mom’s tamarind rice was amazing (minus hair).

Girl: Broke every rule in the first few lessons taught by her mom. Don’t talk to strangers in trains, don’t accept food from strangers (it was also painted on the train wall), try not to travel alone by night (she gave up on that one long back so it doesn’t count as a rule anymore). Probably she was lucky this time that Shy Guy didn’t turn out be a serial rapist and Loud Guys 1 and 2 didn’t dope her and try to steal her stuff.

Or maybe the world is a better place than we all think.

The End

Delhi, Memories, Valentines Day, Flights and Me February 15, 2007

My visa interview was on Feb 14th, in Delhi. I remember thinking on the day I registered for the visa interview “hmmm.. wonder how Delhi would be, on Valentines Day.” I will get to the answer, but let me start at the beginning.

On the 13th evening, I had to rush through the mad traffic in Hyderabad, especially Panjagutta and Begumpet areas, to reach the airport a little ahead of time. I had Aj, Kv, and So with me. We checked in and waited, silently hoping fog won’t delay the flights. We had heard terrible stories of how some others from office flew the day before. Flights supposed to leave at 7pm left at 2am and they had to land at Jaipur and wait for the fog to lift, before they could proceed to Delhi. More than anything, I wanted a good night’s sleep so all of us were silently praying that doesn’t happen to us.

Anyway, the Indian flight was just half hour late and we settled in, had dinner and dozed off. Reached Delhi around 10:30pm and it was frrrreeeeezing. Huddled into the Innova that came to pick us up and set off to Silver Ferns where we were put up. I sat looking out the windows and couldn’t believe I was in Delhi. I had been there once before. With 71 other 12-year olds, on a school trip. I vividly remember the bright yellow scarves, freezing cold, cold creams, chap sticks, thermals, shopping, sightseeing and teachers. Same Delhi, same w—i—d—e roads, same traffic, same buses, different me. Don’t remember much from that trip, except that it was also at this time of the year and we were there on Valentines Day. Then, it didn’t mean much. Not that it means anything to me now, but that can be considered as a resentful, single, twenty-four year old’s ranting.

Woke up at 5:30 on Valentines Day, went to the Consulate and we were all out by 9:30, victorious. We all got our visas approved. Yay!

Mad rush back to the hotel to get all our stuff. And off to Sarojini Market. I had come here during that trip from school. Still remember buying stuff for everyone within the 1000 rupee budget that I was on. After buying for everyone, I had 35 rupees left for myself. Got a skirt for 30 bucks and dropped the five rupee coin on the palms of a 4-year old boy who looked like he hadn’t had food for a week. (I no longer encourage begging. Turn a blind eye. Was so difficult initially but comes much easier now. Thank you Hyderabad.)

Got back to the hotel in time for lunch. So this place, had a lot of cool shops in the same compound. Like coffee day, barista, wong’s kitchen, Nirula’s (where I had had many an ice-cream soda back then), Subway (yess), Mac, etc etc. I got ‘Daily Special’ from Sub while the others hit Mac. Ice cream sundaes from Nirula’s and we headed back to the room, sat on the bed and ate. None of these girls were people I am too close to, except Aj, and yet I had a great time.

Flight back was Kingfisher. Was pretty nice. It was great to finally get one of those pouches for myself. Free headphones and all that. Wheeeeeee.

Got home around midnight with a terrible headache. Slept well in spite of being alone.

God! This post is boring. Yawn.

The Bangalore Post January 29, 2007

Yup. Three days in Bangalore. Learnt a few things after all.

1. The traffic is terrible (an understatement). Vidya’s office timings are 6am to 3pm because they want to avoid the peak traffic hours. And we were cribbing about 8:30 to 5:30. Imagine!!

2. EVERYTHING is more expensive. Here is the list I can’t help but put in here.

auto – min 12 bucks and increases 50ps every two seconds (ok, three seconds!)
baskin robbins – 1 scoop 45 bucks. Its 33 here, isn’t it?
tropical iceberg in coffee day – 57rs! Its 47 here, I know its 47 here.
PVR tickets – different rates for mon-thur and diff rates (180rs and above) for fri, sat, sun. They actually charge more for tamil and mal movies. And its crazy.
Subway – tuna sub is 135rs. Its 95 here and my roomy can vouch for that.

3. Now for the good stuff. I love Bangalore. Sigh. Why? Because I’ve had the best of times there. No money, no care in the world, no job, no phone… that place has seen me at the worst of times. I would gladly share a single bedroom there with three other unknown girls. I feel thats more refreshing than the marble-floored, two BHK I stay in now. (But its definitely nice to have a bathroom to yourself).

Bangalore has taught me a lot, still continues to do so.

Met up a lot of old friends. People I have been out of touch with for ever! Lerish was one. We met at forum (duhh, where else). He took me to coffee day (where they charge more for tropical iceberg) and I duly spilt his ‘cool blue’ all over him. Yeah. Just like you see in the movies, it went splat on hislap. Anyway, after a zillion sorries and a gazillion tissues, he settled down. And we chatted. Good ‘ol chatting. It seems a lot of my friends from pre-degree are married now. Hmmm…

Stayed with Vidya. Both of us have changed so much but things are just the same between us. Same old giggles and gossips and philosophies on life (now more concentrated on marriage and love). We went to Kairali for breakfast – appam and motta curry. Lunch was divine too. Kuthari chor, meen curry and meen fry. See, Bangalore is nice.

Time to Holiday December 22, 2006

The Christmas holidays are finally here. I normally overlook the celebrations in anticipation to the following year.

2006.. hmm.. has been the most happening year in my life and I have learnt more than I have in all the other 23 years combined (including the year I learnt my ABCs).

The jumble that was 2006..

curd, cottons, heat, roomies, mom, hair, love, teeshirts, beach, tailor, vegetables, movies, meshal, bean bags, amrita, backpacks, trips, mattress, balcony, kiss, moon, books, hutch, hurt, pics, unwrapped gifts, malgudi, autos, music, shanky, pain, laughter, walks, fights, waits, silence, chocolates, work, internet, hate, want, shopping, birthdays, flip-flops, bottles, home, tv, blog, god, me, smiles, flowers, lip gloss, roads, tears, friends, separation

Still have 8 more days to go, donno what to expect.

Vacation Post December 11, 2006

Have you ever been on vacation and felt like not going back? Ok, forget all those exotic locations where I know no one wants to come back from. I am talking about going back home. I am home now. Kottayam. A small town towards the southern part of Kerala that has nothing to boast of. No exotic malls or multiplexes or fancy restaurants or branded showrooms. In fact, the roads are bad, they stink in many places where men pee, the autowallahs are rude, the buses are crowded and most of the freshly oiled (coconut oil, of course) heads glisten under the sun. Its humid and you can’t step out in the sun without soaking yourself in sweat 2 minutes thereafter. I have lived in this place for 23 years. I have laughed and cried and played and fallen and run and thought over these roads.Then Hyderabad happened. Strangely, I wasn’t homesick. Of course I missed the coconut heavy curries and the fresh fish and mom but generally I was happy. I came for a two week break a few months back and honestly I wanted to get back before the second week started. You know what’s more strange? This time, I don’t want to go back.. It has nothing to do with homesickness, or the food, or mom, or anything. Atleast I don’t think so. If you ask me, I don’t have a reason. I just don’t want to go back. Yet, if I ask myself whether this is where I want to be, I think the answer is a no. So folks, lets just say I am hopelessly confused now. I am in a stage of my life where I don’t know what I want. Now, it feels like I was never away. As I sit in this baclcony looking at the palms outside, I feel like I was here when they grew so tall. The past year just fades away and I feel like I am still looking for a job, trying to shape out my career. If only that were true.. I hardly look back at a year gone by. For me, looking back has always been to my childhood. Today though, I find myself going through the past year. And it keeps fading.

I know this is too mushy for words and a little silly even. But hey, what the heck! Coming home is always a time for mush and sentiments. Here is to a great year that was!

The road to heaven (or hell!!) November 13, 2006

I don’t think anyone can live in hyderabad too long without talking about the traffic in this place. In one word, its Craaaazy! Every single person who gets his vehicle on the road turns into a madman. It has nothing to do with who they are off the roads. They turn on the ignition and bham! the craziness begins. Now, we know that Indians are not that good with road signals and following traffic rules. By far this is the accepted norm and even I was okay with that. But this city, with evergrowing number of motorists and the roads that are perennially under construction takes the top seat when it comes to badly managed traffic. The police do practically nothing and even the cab drivers from coolly cut into lanes and jump traffic signals. Most of the roads are one way but there so many vehicles going the wrong way that we can’t really distinguish the right direction from the wrong.

The bright side? I am just grateful for getting somewhere alive every time I am on one of these roads!