The year that was...

I had a wonderful year, this blog has kept track of most of the travel - Mahabalipuram, Vellore, Kerala, USA, Bermuda, Hampi

There were loads of other things, that the blog has subtly referred to, but not stated :) all in all a great year!

Signing off on an extremely eventful year, a year that changed things upside down, or like a friend puts it, downside up.
A year filled with travel, surprises, pranks, joy, happiness and laughter :)

Here is to loads of such years to follow!

New Mouthpiece

I exchanged my sturdy 3 year old Nokia 6600




for a brand new



Nokia 5610 Express Music Edition phone.

Nokia rocks! the usability aspect and just the general sturdiness of the phones are wonderful, I thought parting with my 6600 would be painful, but the transition has been made delightful by the superb performance of the 5610.

Way to go Nokia!


Big GRIN !

Oh Carols...I am but a foool!

With Christmas round the corner, my music tends towards carol singing!
Practice has just begun and is going just super, here is a video a friend pointed me to

It is the 12 days of Christmas performed by Boymongoose and the Indian Band



Extremely hilarious and one of the funniest watches till date!

Click on the picture to watch it now !

Mahabalipuram Reloaded

Well, visited this place in March, and back again with a different group in December :)
Here be the pictures...


Calmness


Trinket shopping


Carvings, a beautiful Ganpati


The largest captive crocodile in India, 17 feet long!!




Monkeying around


Sunset, Shore Temple, Mahabalipuram

Songs in the cranium

Tum se hi - Mohit Chauhan (Jab We Met)
Aaoge Jab Tum - Ustad Rashid Khan (Jab We Met)
Duur Chala Aya - Silk Route
Jadu Tona - Silk Route
Yeh Nigahein - Khoya Khoya Chand

Phew! quite a few :)

What the signs say...

Yes, it has been long since I have put up a sign story post, here is one I found in Bermuda

Found in a bar...

Om!

The weekend saw us at the lovely Om beach :)

A 12 hour bus ride from Bangalore turned out to be a 15 hour ride, with the bus breaking down and we having to change buses to reach the temple town of Gokarna (in coastal Karnataka). An 8 kilometre auto ride from Gokarna saw us at Om beach.
The coast contains quite a few beaches (Kudle, Om, Paradise, Half Moon and Long beach) and is lined with shacks.
We stayed at one such shack right by the beautiful beach, the evening was wonderful and a couple of mats, candles, and a clear starry night above made the night absolutely sublime.
We hired boats to get to the other beaches for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. All in all a wonderful weekend getaway :)

here are some pictures (I am partial to sunset pictures as you may notice)

Thoughts...

Above the tumult and the strife,
I hear the music ringing;
It sounds an echo in my soul
How can I keep from singing?

- Pete Seeger

Language

I have stayed in Bangalore almost all my life, on a call recently, I was asked
"you don't seem to be used to talking in Marathi" :-|
Well, I am used to talking in Marathi, I speak it everyday. Yes I wont talk like People would in Bombay.
So what if I have a different Marathi accent? - have I criticized your English accent?
So what if my grammar is not perfect? - I do not intend to write prose or poetry in Marathi anytime soon.

Next time I am going to turn around and ask,
"How come you don't speak,read or write in Kannada, Konkani or English, as well as I do?"

Pin-up Board

Got myself a piece of Thermocol, and made an instant pin-up board, put up some of my most treasured pictures and I like the result :D

Random Post

Last night lighting crackers at a friends place, reiterated my recent resolution that the fun one gets lighting crackers is just not worth the smoke and intense noise generated.
There was a time when I used to get bags full of crackers, so many that they would last the entire Diwali stretch and be available for celebrating Indian victory in cricket matches.
But since then I have limited myself to crackers that emit the least amount of sound or smoke.

I watched the movie 'American Beauty' and I think it sucks big time, reminds me of a quote
"All you need is for one person to think you're cool, and you're in. Everyone else will be scared to question it."
Pathetic movie with not one plus point, I have been a huuuuge fan of Kevin Spacey until I watched this movie, I see him in a weird new light now.

But I guess I live in an age where a "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham" kind of movie with all its opulence scores over the brilliance and subtlety of a "Swades" (One of my all time fav movies)

Also this Diwali has ushered in a wave of changes, (all for the best as always), For the first time in my entire life, I am thinking of next Diwali (as in thinking almost a year ahead, I normally never try and look beyond the next weekend)

Cloing my random post with wishes for a wonderful, environment friendly and safe Diwali ahead!

Bookie

I realise so many people judge you by the books you read,

"ooooooh Sidney Sheldon, thats so childish"

"Ooooh you dont read Harry Potter? saaad"

"What!? you prefer Terry Pratchett over Douglas Adams? who is Pratchett!?"

These so called generalities change from place to place, I went over to Barnes and Nobles with a friend cos I had promised to gift her a book.

I was looking for GK Chesterton's Father Brown, but our pals at B&N had not heard of it :-|
(I am sure they would know who wears what underpants in Gryffindor)
Finally I decided to get her the Bartimaeus Trilogy, We looked up and down all over the place and finally realised that hey! the books are in the kids section
8-12 year old to be precise.

Now this was a shocker to me! to see the book I have been presently reading in the kids section! siiigh well I enjoy the series anyways, do read the trilogy if you get a chance, very Pratchetty in nature.

p.s: its cheaper to watch a movie twice in a good theatre than to buy a book in the US. Not nice.
I got pearl jewelery for the same price I spent on a couple of books! Thank GOD for places like Blossoms here.

I may not act my age, but do I at least look my age?

On a recently concluded trip to the land of "Life Liberty and Pursuit of happiness" (I am trying hard not to laugh :-|), I happened to visit the very American "Applebee's Grill".

Now as we were waiting to be seated, my roving gaze fell upon a bunch of colourful crayons, I asked the waiter if I could get some and he happily gave me 4 of them (one of each colour).

So we were seated and it being a Friday evening, I decided to partake in some alcoholic beverage.

Out came a pretty little waitress to get our orders

She: "What can I get for you honey?"
Me: "I would like a Long Island Iced Tea please, make it strong"
She(Giving me one long hard look) : May I have some age proof
Me: I don't have age proof on me, but hey I am 25! (my friends nodded in agreement too)
She(with a wicked grin): Sorry, you look 15ish to me
Then it was the turn of her roving gaze to fall upon the crayons in my hand (bad timing)
She: ah crayons eh? here you wont get any alcohol tonight, what you will get is a colouring book
and she gave me a bl**dy colouring book!

I ordered a Chocolate milkshake, coloured in some of the psychopathic looking animals in the colour book and when she came back to get our main course orders,
handing back the colouring book I proclaimed
"You see I cannot order any food, its against my religion to eat without drinking alcohol!"

She laughed at this and I left

1 month down the line,
I landed at the same restaurant again (for the record: much against my wishes) without my age proof again :(
This time my friends promised we would get a table somewhere in a remote corner.
And a remote corner we did get!
I did not even glance at the crayons and was acting all adult when, lo behold! who comes to take our order?
The same pretty waitress!

Me (attempting to hide my face): Err an Apple Martini please
She: Ah you are the same chap who was sulking last time because you did not get that drink!

Siiigghhhhh
I wont go into the conversation that ensued, all I can say is they make good Chocolate Milkshakes there and hey! a milkshake is any day better than an Apple Martini or a Long Island Ice Tea! eh?

Nikola Tesla

I recently watched Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige", and one character that stuck in my mind was that of Nikola Tesla (played by David Bowie), I decide to read up on Tesla only to realise that Tesla was not a fictional character but existed in real life.
Tesla apparently was the uncredited inventor of the Radio, and kicked Elvis Edison's A** many a time over the AC v/s DC "War of the Currents"

Having worked for Edison and having been cheated by Edison, Tesla still rose to become one of the worlds greatest scientist.
I had never heard of him before, I wonder how many of us have? and I also wonder how many such greats have been overshadowed by their more media friendly contemporaries...

Songs in my head

Have you ever seen the rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Ajab Si - Om Shanti Om
Aye mere pyaare watan - Manna Dey
Katra Katra - Ijazat
You're Beautiful - James Blunt

Movies...

Well the past couple of months have been hectic and crazy, nevertheless have been able to catch up on a few movies :)

Four Brothers


Four brothers get together to avenge their mothers death, I liked this movie, fast paced and good gun fights :)

Corpse Bride


Tim Burton and Johnny Depp get together again, in this dark and macabre animated film :) I think my expectations were too high and I ended up a little disappointed. An average movie.
(there for ppl who think I blindly love any Johnny Depp movie, here is one I think is avg :D )

Evan Almighty

Decent movie, kept me entertained on the long flight home, at no point did this make me laugh out loud though, and a comedy that fails to do that is, well, not a comedy :|

The Illusionist


Edward Norton and the very pretty Jessica Biel, with great support from Paul Giamatti. This movie about a magician, who uses all his skills to get the girl he loves :)
Well made, very watchable. The only shortcoming is a gaping plot hole!

Bheja Fry
Good movie, again, this one kept me entertained on a very long flight, made me laugh out loud. A good watch!

Oceans 13
Barely watchable

Spiderman 3
Pathetic, the joker in spandex has gone from bad to worse

Shrek 3
Alright, but this one has started to get on my nerves too

Pirates 3
Watchable

Fracture


This one is gooood movie :) Ryan Gosling matches Anthony Hopkins, scene to scene. A courtroom thriller, a very well made and watchable movie!

Shoot 'em up


Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti, both good actors completely wasted in this piece of trash! Easily enters the list of the worst English movies I have ever watched, I am very surprised to see this rated highly in imdb.
oh and if there was any doubt as to who the hottest 40+ actress today is? one can safely take Monica belluci out of the reckoning, She looks 60 in this one.

Flight Plan

Flight1

Pilot: Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome aboard! sorry for the delay in take off, My computer seems to have gone to sleep and refuses to wake up, I am just rebooting it and we should take off in the next 15 mins!


Pilot again...(30 mins Later): Well the computer is sure behaving odd, it refuses to wake up. I guess we will have to do without it! please fasten your seat belts, we take off in 2 mins



Flight2

I nodded off while reading and awakened by the hysterical screams of the lady sitting next to me. As I slowly got myself back into the world of the conscious I realised that, in fact quite a few people were screaming.

The reason being that the plane was behaving like a roller coaster car.

I quite enjoyed the bumps and the sudden shuddering drops (very exciting, it being the first time i had experienced turbulence in air), but quite a few people, instead of being appreciative, were busying themselves either screaming or throwing up.

There were a few others who like me were grinning and enjoying the ride, and I can swear there was one guy who slept through the entire 15 minute period.

The pilot however was uncharacteristically quiet. Not a word from him.
Later when we landed (according to the lady next to me, "miraculously we are on the ground") and were disembarking, out came the pilot and I smiled at him.
He looked at me and said "Rough ride eh?" I nodded back in agreement, to which he responded
"I was praying in there!"
:-| next time we encounter turbulence, I will join in the screaming too!

Half the country on a bicycle!

I had promised more details regarding the bicycle expedition last weekend, a week has gone by and now I have a scooter and a cycle!
But I keep my word, here is a brilliant (& fantastic, fabulous, awesome etc etc) map I made, that shows the cycle trail we took to ride through half the country :)

Click on the picture to enlarge

Saturday on the island - Biking

We hired bicycles, took a ferry to the western tip of the country and managed to cycle half the country in 5 hours! and all this while drinking in the sights Bermuda had to offer and eating some great food at a beautiful place. Bermuda is a hilly place and we were tired by the end of 5 hours but it was an unmatched experience biking along the coast, and visiting the beaches.

Here are some pictures of the day, as always with Bermuda, there is a lot of blue, lots of water and skies !

On the ferry from Hamilton (capital) to Naval Dockyard







On the Road






The Food place!!






The rain approaches






Horseshoe Bay (A popular Beach)





A Beautiful evening (View of Hamilton Parish, Bermudian capital)

Here I stay!!

Bermudian Roofs

All the roofs in Bermuda are white pyramid shaped ones, This helps the Bermudians do some rain water harvesting, they use this water even for drinking at times!
When we landed, we were told, "if someone offers you water to drink, go out and look at their roof, if its white and clean, the water would be good to drink" :)

Oh, and that is indeed a rainbow that greeted me last morning when I walked out of the Hotel !

There is a huuuge cruise ship on my street and other observations in Bermuda...

Oh yes! I walked out of office and lo behold there was a massive "building" right in front of me that had not existed 4 hours ago!



This picture may convey some of the effect it had on us, but its just not enough!!

this ocean Liner is about 8 storeys tall and two city blocks long.

I have been slogging it out for the past 3 days I have been here, but have managed to get a few snaps. Definitely more about the place in the days to come, for now here are some pictures