Life rolls on...

Well, it has been more than 2 months since I have posted. Not that there was nothing worth posting. Lot many things happening in fact. So much that I did not find time to post it here. This ,this and many other events both on professional and personal front keeping my clock ticking. Meanwhile, the things that I found worth quoting here:

• India Australia ODI series was an amazing tour. A second grade Australian side, beating India quite convincingly was indeed a proof of the strength Australia have and it rebuffed claims of anyone toppling Australia from the top spot in near future.
• The India-SL series has been a who cares series for me at least. With pitches like concrete pitches being used for the series it is a nightmare for the bowlers and test matches lacked the intensity.
• The NZL-Pak series was a well fought one. After a long time we witnessed some quality fast bowling in that series.
• Watched umpteen number of movies in this time frame. The best among the lot being Paa. Balki had impressed me tremendously in Cheeni Kum itself and I was waiting eagerly for this one. And it proved to be a worthwhile wait. If you are not of the kind who is impressed by the wit and the casual dialogs in the movie, there is the genius Amitabh in a never seen avatar. Overall a tremendous movie experiece for me.
• Another movie which impressed me during this tenure was Peranmai in tamil. Though you get a feeling that it could have been so much a better movie, still it was a nice attempt. The lessons on the global economy and guerrilla warfare are indeed a nice thing to be shown in a tamil movie. All this comes with a cool and restraint performance from 'Jayam' Ravi.
• Watched a highly violent and offensive movie called Renigunta. I feel it is time tamil movies stop churning out the violent and sad ending village based movies. What started as a fresh trend has so fast become mundane.
• Lot of movies to be watched in pipeline. Rocket Singh, 3 idiots,Kurbaan,Avatar all looks promising.

Life rolls on...

Life's been rolling on. To say I have been busy with work would be a false statement ,but yes I was busy with so many other things. One after the other, the twitter bug and now the linked.in and lastly facebook bugs have had their toll on my blogging time and hence, could not write in earlier. So here I am giving an upate on whats been happening all these days.

I have suddenly realized the immense free time we have during weekends and am trying to put it to some good use apart from dozing around and spending time watching movies. Not that I did not watch any during this time. In fact I watched some very good movies. Subramanyapuram, yeah I know, but I could watch it only now, is indeed a path breaking movie in all aspects. Superb. So was Nadodigal a new phase in tamil cinema , I would say; Love aaj Kal, well it is like a chat item at your favourite shop, you know it would be good and it was good , only that nothing in it was original; Angels and Demons, though I am no big advocate of the story itself, which I feel is very meek in comparison with Da Vinci code, the movie though was watchable; Hangover, one of the most hilarious English comedies I have ever seen, though I don't watch many english comedies, I just missed the company of people I would have loved to watch this one with.

As for ashes, it is always there to thrill me. I somehow predicted the outcome of the last test match that Aussies will win it. But I never thought it would be this big. Now I think Aussies are all set to win ashes or at best retain the ashes. For me, England do not have the fighting spirit to pull back things from here. Just hoping Freddie gets a good farewell.

Things like 63rd independence day celebration and Shahrukh Khan being detained at the airport and all the media hulla surrounding it, well I felt there is no need to sensatinoalize either of these and there are other pertinent issues in the country which deserved more attention.

That's it from me.

Memories down under in Coimbatore

Well, somethings don't happen when and where you wish . They just happen when they are destined to. And till then you have to wait for the moment. I had been thinking of going and visiting my college and the beautiful city of Coimbatore where it is situated ever since I completed a year into this corporate world but then the thought had a wait time of 4 years before it finally materialized.

Yes, indeed this weekend I visited Coimbatore and more importantly spent a time of full 2 hours inside the campus taking snaps and recollecting memories of lost times, of times which will never come back again. It was really bad that there was no one in the college except some staffs who were invigilating over some exams happening. So, here I had an unrestricted access into all the hostel and department blocks. Of course, the labs were closed. The Coimbatore weather in June, stayed true to its expectations and was at its typical best. It was breezing all the while with intermittent drizzle now and then. Many things have changed and many new things have cropped up new. Like the new Civil Engineering block. But some things are rock solid and unchanged. Like the hostel and the greenery around. It goes to the credit of the college administrators for not giving in to expansion at the price of greenery. As for around the college, there are a lot of new bakeries which have sprung up. Also, noteworthy for me was the new snooker,billiards and pool outlet which has come up. Brave move by the owner I would say knowing my college mates finances. Nakshatra has become Ponnusamy, K.R Bakes has become K.R. Restaurants , I think this change is all across Coimbatore. Somethings have vanished, like the all famous Karthick mess.

Life has to move on and so have we. But some memories remain etched in ur minds forever though in dormant state. It was like hitting the rewind button on the remote control and then watching the highlights of the play again.

The unforgettable tour 2

Here goes the second part of the so called unforgettable tour which I made to LA. After a wonderful and entertaining day at the universal studios and an overnight stay at the hotel, next morning we headed to the supposedly, happiest place in the world. The place where the clock never strikes midnight, the place where everyone irrespective of their age becomes a kid. We thought we would be the early birds by making it there before others come in but we were in for a rude shock. By the time we entered disneyland after wading through the marathon crowd on foot, we saw the entire world there. Again due to maverick planning of our tour guide, we managed to hit all the famous and not to be missed spots first.

As soon as we entered, we saw a breathtakingly beautiful disneyland railroad station and the street called main street U.S.A. And there was goofy waiting for us to take snaps with it.

First on our list was the most famous indiana jones ride. After a really long walk to the ride from the entrance into a cave like structure we were made to sit on a jeep prototype and then made to ride on rough roads having lots of ups ,downs curves and artificially created dangers. The best part was the statue of a man hanging from the ceiling as if he will just jump into the jeep and the big dummy stone being rolled over as if it would straight land on your head. After around 5 to 10 minutes the bumpy ride came to and end but not before giving us very nice thrilling moments.

Next was the best of the lot, the pirated of the carribean ride. This ride was a very smooth ride , no ups,downs,thrills whatsoever. But the effect they have created of the sky and other sets relevant to the movie inside this ride gives an out of the world experience. At one point it looks like the end of the world, meaning there is a dead end in the ocean and the way it looks here in the ride is nothing short of the real experience. This ride lasted for more than 10 minutes and all the time as expected we were seated on a boat navigating on an artificially well created ocean.

After this rather calm and spellbounding experience, we were headed for some short and quick thrill in the form of splash mountain. Which is nothing but just another water ride with a steep and thrilling fall at the end of it. A good place to take some memorable picture at the cost of 15 bugs though.

Next we headed to the other side of park , tomorrow land where our first destination was space mountain. The amount of thrill felt in this ride cannot be expressed in words. Your carriage(if we can call that fast moving thing a carriage) , moves at breathtaking speed in a pitch dark auditorium kind of structure. The only small source of light throughout the entire ride is some artificial shining star. The twists and turns, the steep climbs and falls, the sharp U turns, all at a breathtaking speed and pitch dark environment, this is surely enough to give a nauseating feeling but fortunately and intelligently we had hit upon this ride just before lunch. The single thought that came to my mind after this ride was about the amount of testing and planning that would have gone in for this ride .Our guide was smart enough to get us fast pass for this one when we were enjoying the other rides.

Fast pass means you do not have to wait for the next ride in the queue. You will be given a ticket with the ride timings and you can just report at that time.

Once done with space mountain we went for lunch and that’s when the other group among us who wanted to hit california adventures, the adventure park opposite to disneyland moved on after lunch. And post lunch we were left on our own as our guide moved on with them and this is when we were left on our own for the rest of disneyland trip . Post lunch we were not sure where to go and we lost lot of time and post lunch rush at all the spots was very high.

After deciding to go to the Findind Nemo submarine ride next, we boarded Disneyland monorail , not knowing that it is less for sight seeing and more for real transportation from nearby hotels to the disneyland. So we reached back to the same place after a rather disappointing ride on monorail. My personal recommendation, use monorail only if you have to , otherwise it is just worth a snap.

Once back from here, we found that the queue for the much hyped submarine had a waiting time of more than 1.5 hours and hence, we made our way to the the nearby autopia but again a long queue and a waiting time of more than 20 minutes. This was a kid dish version of the go carting experience, and to be frank the hot sun blazing us did not allow to enjoy this either.

The next we decided to give the finding nemo submarine ride a try nevertheless and waited in queue for more than 1 hour and 15 minutes before getting into an kid dish submarine ride. With all artificial fish and creatures underwater, I would say this one was not worth the 75 minute long wait but nevertheless when you become kid you are bound to enjoy all these stuff.

Once done with this we headed to the other side of the park , Mickey's toon town to meet all the famous characters created by Sir.Walt Disney. And yet again another queue at Mr.mickey's house as if it is a visit to tirupati devasthana. We finally waited and took some nice snaps with the richest mouse of the world in his own house.

Next after having a stroll around the toon town which was indeed very beautiful , we took the Disneyland traditional railroad back to the main area from where we began our morning trip as it was time for some refreshment before the ultimate fun.

After meeting our California adventures folks and then taking all the memorable snaps, finally we went and waited for the two best part of the day.

First one being the disneyland parade. Where all the world famous disney characters, you name them they are there march in front of you in their beautiful and decorated carts. Mickey,minnie,goofy,snow white and the seven dwarfs,pinocchio,donald duck all of them were there and this whole parade lasted around 18 minutes and I had to see the entire parade through the small 4" display of my digital camera as I was recording the entire parade video. To say the parade was awesome would be understatement by all means.

Finally after the parade, we managed to grab something to eat and then started the rock music by an unknown brand singing songs unknown to me but the whole auro surrounding the place was enough for one to be engrossed in the music. It went on for around 40 minutes for every hour and we managed to watch it for two consecutive hours and it was a nice experience. The amazing sound effects created using the high tech instruments was indeed a superb experience.

After buying some souvenir, we went to back to the main street U.S.A reluctantly though, from where we were supposed to see the next of the show stealers. It was the disney fireworks. It started at 9 pm with all the other lights put off. It was by far the best fireworks I had ever seen. The amount of precision they maintained and the flawlessness which was observed can only be felt and cannot be described.

After about 20 minutes of this fun, we were all set to go back but the park was open , open till midnight. We returned back to our hotels, with our minds, hearts and cameras full , full of some everlasting memories. For me it was a day of mixed responses but the two events towards the end of the day the parade and fireworks worked for me. They stood out as the man of the match for this one day entertainment package. As one of the pamphlets of disneyland read " here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday ,tomorrow and fantasy", we experienced the world of fantasy. The world where everyone turns into a child.

end of chapter in life : Part 1

Disclaimer: Pls don't get hurt with any of these comments. All in fun.

Life is lived in chapters. This I had believed right from childhood and it stands very true for my life. I say so because each part of my life is completely disjointed from the other part ,if not mentally at least physically. And as the wheels of life have turned again , I am at the juncture of end of another chapter in my life. Undoubtedly one of the happiest chapters in my life, the chapter when me and my roomies stayed in Bangalore. Now when it is time when all of us are moving ahead /have already moved with their lives , with a heavy heart I am penning down whatever I can remember of the days we spent together. This could turn out to be the most sentimental blog I have ever written .
Our association started off in Oct 2004 when me,Vinu and Partha decided to take a house. I can't forget the day when me and Vinu gradually drifted without realising into egipura while searching for house. Fate intervened and we were joined by 2 more people Jo and Mama and later by my old pal from college Sajith(Bhaiya). How we missed the first house we saw and then entered into 8/1, Aswini Layout is a funny tale. There began our first association. Breakfast skipping on sundays to walking all the way to godavari for a decent meal and the stare waiter used to give when we told no for all the side dishes except for meals, Vinu's constant quetchings about the house and partha and murugan's unnecessary duel are some of the memories which will never be erased. Not that I was the perfect one in the house, I too had lot of shortcomings , lots of angry outbursts for petty things were some of my 'achievements' at the house. By the time we planned to leave the house Murugan had become an inevitable part of our gang. Nov 2005 was when we vacated the house but not so smoothly.

Some unforgettable things/events at this house in no specific order:

• Vinu's histrionics :The way Vinu as soon as he entered the house and put his bed in the first room saying" Naan inga thaan , yaaru venum nallum enga vennalum ponga" and within days he came with his bed to the other room. Vinu packing his luggage to leave the house and inspite of all our efforts he didn't change his decision and one fateful sunday when he asked" kandippa poi thaan aaganum a?"
• Kovai International: The long queue at this place for eating, how the chutney was full watery and the kanjathanam he used to do for putting chutney, the paper thin dosa for 4 rs and the unhygenic serving of the food.
• Sunday morning breakfast: Which we never had. Whoever ventured out first to have T or puffs was made the scapegoat and people used to call him to get something for them.
• Partha vs Murugan vs Natraj: This will undoubtedly be the funniest incident when we recall it say 10 years later. No one knows the exact cause of the dual between Partha and Murugan and how I jumped up in support of Murugan. Silly ! All very Silly!
• Safal , rival for Kovai: For a long time Kovai was the undisputed destination for food for all of us until Safal came up. The red color chutney, the watery dal, aaloo paratha and the endless wait for all of this .
• Entry of the neatness freak Bhaiya:How bhaiya's dad commented on the house being very dirty and dusty and how we had very high hopes on bhaiya being a netaness freak and how he turned our house into a dustbin. Remember the bad smell one day everyone was chasing to find where it is coming from to finally find it is from bhaiya's sweater
  
• Exit from the house: The exit from the house , the owner's behavior and the way he tore away the agreement upon petering him for the balance advance amount.

Hope these memories are everlasting not only in the google server but also in our heart.