To London To London...

London is the same, nothing seems to have changed.

What did I do there?

1) Did my favourite London walk :)

Begin :
British Museum --> Totenham Court road --> Leicester Square --> Piccadily Circus --> Trafalgar Square --> Big Ben --> Cross the Thames on the bridge by Westminister --> By the Aquarium, London eye, Waterloo Station --> Up the Millennium Bridge (staring straight at St Paul's Cathedral) back across the Thames --> and walk by the London Bridge --> all the way to the tower of London and the Tower bridge --> Back to the Hotel in the Tube: End

Last visit I had done part of this alone and gotten horribly lost (!) for about 2 hours.

This time I knew my way around quite well and I had a friend along, it took us 5 hours :) with breaks for Hot Chocolate, some shopping in the open markets by the Thames and a nice lunch at an Indian(!) restaurant.

2) Shopped in Camden :) :)

Here are some pictures


Trafalgar Square : National Art Gallery


Trafalgar Square: Nelson's column


Thames: London Eye


Big Ben

There are some pictures of the night walk we did :) will post them later!

5 movies with a twist

There are some movies that are 'slice of life' and others that make you sit up and stare at the screen in amazement here is a list of the latter, movies that have a twist at the end that one never expected:)
again, in no particular order the five movies at the top of my mind are...

Charade


This classic stays imprinted in my mind because I watched it when I was a kid and it stil made me go wooow!


Memento


The editing the fast paced narration and the thing about this movie is, it ties everything together in the end and then gives it a vicious twist! lovely !

The usual suspects


Kevin Spacey, brilliant

The Others


One of my all time favourite horror movies. what a turn this one takes!

SAW



If one thought the movie was edge of the seat, the twist was definitely unexpected!

papercraft

Here is something I made today :)




All I did was

1. Visited PaperCraft
2. Downloaded the templates
3. Took a print out
and
4. Created the bird with scissors and glue

5 Weird movies

They are zany, they are twisted and they are insane. Here is a list and gist of 5 of the most insane movies (in no particular order) that I have watched

EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY


Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey and Geena Davis star in this weird movie about an alien spaceship containing 3 aliens (a red alien, a green alien and a blue alien) that lands in a swimming pool in America and the weirdness that ensues is unparalleled, well almost.


A CLOCKWORK ORANGE


"a bit of the old ultra-violence"

This is one weird movie that I enjoyed a lot. It is one movie that deserves its cult status! I love this movie!


I HEART HUCKABEES


This movie to me is the epitome of weirdness, a couple play detectives who help solve existential issues and the movie makes no sense whatsoever and is NOT funny by any stretch of imagination. Oh and I cannot stand Lily Tomlin so she helps the movie grow weirder exponentially


REVOLVER


Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham, a surefire combo to success right? WRONG! this is one movie that takes action to various metaphysical planes and gives the viewer a doped feeling. You guys were involved in Lock Stock... and Snatch. What went wrong here guys??


TRAINSPOTTING



Man, this dope head movie is one that will make it to my weird movie list every time.

Re-whew!

Where the truth lies

A Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth movie about a popular stand-up comedy duo, a Ménage à trois gone wrong and a murder mystery.
Unfortunately for me most of the plot was in the "offending scenes" that were edited out on HBO to make the movie suitable for family viewing, hence I did NOT get the plot! did not seem like much of a plot though :) *The grapes are sour, he says*


Lucky Number Slevin

Harman Baweja is a cheap imitation of Hrithik (not that Hrithik is anything great), and this director is a wannabe Guy Ritchie, he does a take on the the Tarantino/Ritchie style of direction.

However, even some 'interesting' sound track and an ensemble of popular actors - Bruce Willis, Ben Kingsley, Morgan Freeman to name a few, cannot save this tripe!

The suspense is basically created by showing the viewer a series of scenes that do not show one or the other character and then later showing these scenes again, only this time the faces of the characters are shown and the audience is expected to go 'oooooh' and 'aaaaah' for me this was more of an 'Ouchhhh!' movie.


Get Smart

Fantastic! Wonderful!

I watched this movie expecting it to be another 'Johnny English' or worse, another 'Austin Powers' but I am pleased to say I was pleasantly surprised :)

Steve Carrel does a brilliant job and the very pretty Anne Hathaway (siiiighhhhh) is as usual good!
and there is Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson and Dalip 'The Great Khali' Singh to provide some thrills.
The action sequences are awesome and could have been part of any Bond movie

This is one witty comedy that you would not regret watching

humming...

Kahin to hogi woh - Rashid Ali (Jaane tuya jaane na)

this one is fresh! and Vasundhara das gives it a completely new feel.


Yaad Aaye Jaaye - Mohit Chauhan (Ugly aur Pagli)

hehe yes! this one is from t he movie 'Ugly aur Pagli', But Mohit Chauhan is Mohit Chauhan

A site to see

ReadyMech is so cool :)



I took a quick print out of their 'do it yourself ' Japanese toy and with some scissors & glue was able to make a 'toy' in 10 minutes.

It looks awesome!

Visit the website for more free and cool toys.

BIAL -Bangalore Airport

If one were to visit the BBMP (aka BMP) offices and manage to sneak past the files and the babus, I am sure somewhere in the innermost sanctum sanctorum of that great edifice sits a monkey tapping away at it computer and churning out plans involving flyovers that need traffic cops and signals perched atop, and underpasses that need you to take deviations from the main road so that you can use the underpass to get to the main road that you just deviated from.
Warped? What else can you expect from a monkey?

Well, before I deviate like the Bellary Main road, let me get back to the topic at hand!

The road to the airport has taken its own sweet time, The airport however is on a completely different level altogether!

Wonderful parking facilities, a sprawling complex to accommodate everything that Bangalore can throw at it, very nice waiting lounge and wide open space if further plans of expansions exist.

After the Hebbal flyover the road leading to the airport is fantastic! (yes all 27 kms of it). No traffic snarls what so ever!

Excellent transport facilities to and fro from the Airport and for once some one in the planning committee has done something right!

I am a big fan of the new airport and I am appalled that so many people are complaining about the airport.

Bangalore is imploding, the need of the hour is to spread the city out, yes, there will be transport issues for some time, but so what?

Lets face it, the old airport was but a pathetic excuse for an airport, tiny, cramped, lacking basic facilities.
But no, we were willing to live with all that, just because it would save us 30 minutes of travel time to the airport.

What about the lack of seating in the lounges?, what about bad restrooms?, what about serpentine customs queues?
Never thought how much time was getting wasted there?

Its time we stop suffering from tunnel vision, and accept change!

Lovely!

Jive gave me this!

Batman Begins: The Official Movie Guide

130 odd pages of sublimity :D :D

A wonderful present indeed :) Thanks Jivey!

Vaav! vat-e-day...

On Saturday, I learned that my presence was "required" at our lovely Chennai office ASAP.

The earliest (I almost wrote 'Soonest' :P) possible for me was Tuesday, and out I headed to the fantastic Bangalore International Airport (I will sing its praises in a future post *is not sarcastic*) to catch a flight to the land of humid weather, polite people, Rajinikanth and sambhar

I had my tickets booked for Tuesday (Jet Airways) with a return planned on Friday (Air Deccan).

Wait at the wonderful Bangalore airport lounge : 8:00 am to 10:00 am - 2 hours ( I like an early check in)

Some 4-5 minutes away from boarding the flight, I got a call that inform me that the reason for which I was hurriedly headed to Chennai no longer existed. *Clicks a finger* just like that!

Given that the tickets were already booked and at that moment, Chennai was 45 minutes away compared to my Bangalore office that was a minimum of 120 minutes away, I decided to fly out anyway!

Some confusion about the boarding gate (Hey we are boarding at gate 8, err actually gate 10, hey guess what peehpul! Gate 11 it will be!) and off we flew to Chennai.

Flight time en route to Chennai: 1 hour

Reached the Chennai office, socialised with the crowd (a few old faces a few new) and decided to reschedule my friday evening flight.

A quick lunch, some more socialising and an auto ride saw me at the Chennai airport, at 4:30 pm well in time for the Air Deccan flight scheduled at 5:30pm.

At check-in I discovered that the flight was late by 40 minutes (The plane has not yet arrived saar!)

siiiggghh, I settled down to catch up on the days news, A TOI, an Indian Express and 15 minutes of watching cyclic clips of the latest developments in the Arushi murder case on the airport telly and I was all set to board the flight

Wait at the Chennai airport lounge :4:30pm to 6:10pm - 1 hour 40 minutes

They took us in the bus to the plane, got us to sit in the plane, gave us a couple of Kingfisher mineral water bottles and then the Captain's voice boomed on the PA system

"Welcome on board our flight #### to Bangalore, we have an engine failure and hence are presently unable to take off"
"You know it is after all a machine and is liable to fail anytime, thank you for understanding"

*Makes a straight face*

Fail anytime!?? wow!

Some reassurance that! So in about 20 minutes it was decided that the plane is not going to be air borne anytime soon.

Waiting time in immobile aircraft : 30 minutes

Off we were loaded back into the bus on the way back to the waiting lounge.

After the screaming and shouting at the Air Deccan ground staff, we were pacified with "refreshments" which included what seemed like a fruit cake, a mango juice in a tetrapack and 2 slices of bread with some cheese within.

We were to be put on another Air Deccan flight scheduled for later that evening at 8:50 pm

Out came the P.G. Wodehouse, Thank heavens I had carried it along.

Waiting at the Chennai Lounge, Phase 2: 2 hours 10 mins

at 8:50pm, we were told that the flight is delayed by 15 minutes, (The plane has not yet arrived saar!) a wave of Deja Vu.

Waiting at the Chennai Lounge, Phase 3: 30 minutes

Finally we did board the flight at 9:20 and this time it did take off and stayed aloft long enough to reach Bangalore!

Flight time back to Bangalore: 1 hour

That makes it a total of 8 hours and 50 minutes at the Airport or in the plane!

And I have not even factored in the time to get to the Airport and Back.

Whew! a long day and a long post :)

ads

On one hand one had ads such as Bajaj Caliber (the unshakeable), the wonderful close-up Jingle and a hundred other classics!

and on the other hand you have Max insurance ads :|

Weirdness! The Max ads (Screeches of "Sanju, Sanju" and "Ek bimaari") are like fingernails that
run over the blackboard of my mind.

In the cranium...

Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich - Hold Tight!

Silk Route - Sabse Peeche Hum Khade

Spent all of Sunday singing these two songs :D :D

Show Off!

Yaaay I won big!

Beating krymsson 532 to 335 is something worth showing off!

One long day

Thursday, saw me at the land of the Wodeyars, the silkworms and the Mahishasur (not in any particular order, mind you)

Mission: Pre-placement talks at a couple of colleges that we would later in the year visit for campus recruitment.

Prior Experience: Whenever time has permitted , I have tagged along with the recruitment team to help give a quick talk about ThoughtWorks and life therein.
Just the way the students go "wooow!"when we show them videos and pictures of what life at ThoughtWorks has in store, makes my day!, not to mention the saccharine sweetness with which the placement officers us.

Mysore, however was a different ball game altogether!

An early morning start, breakfast at Lokaruchi and Mysore by 11:45am, just to make it in time for the first presentation at SJCE (a well known engineering college), or, so we thought.
When the placement officer was called and informed of our arrival,
Pat came the reply "you see, I am driving down from Bangalore, I shall reach Mysore in next 30 mins, then I shall have a bath and come!".

Dude! notwithstanding your lack of punctuality, at the very least spare us the gory details.
He finally arrived(when we were well into the presentation) and left in about 20 mins, stating "I have some grandmother's ceremony I need to attend to"
but, not before he had told us exactly what had held him up in Bangalore, apparently he had gone to the Forum for some shopping and in general seemed to have spent his time about doing inane things, while he should have been on the road to Mysore!

Hilarious!

The students however were pretty chirpy and surprisingly had quite a few smart questions to ask, though one of them did manage to squeeze in a "Do you have a swimming pool at ThoughtWorks?" question.

A quick pit stop for lunch and off to College #2

National Institute of Engineering

Well, here, the placement officer welcomed us with a smile, offered us tea and thats when it went downhill, as he picked up his phone and proceeded to make half a dozen phone calls to random people, all the while, shouting his lungs out.
If he wanted to show us that he was a very important person, the shouting and the having to introduce himself a minimum of 3 times over the phone did not help.

He seemed to have clean forgotten we were there. We our tea (good tea it was!) and set off for the presentation.
The students trudged in about 15 mins late and I was soon done with the presentation!

Off we left Mysore only to return at an ungodly hour - 12:30 am t o be precise

Bottom Line - Placement officers in Mysore have failed to impress

The lighted windows dim

Are fading slowly.

The fire that was so trim

Now quivers lowly.

Go to the dreamless bed

Where grief reposes;

Thy book of toil is read,

The long day closes.

- Henry Fothergill Chorley and Arthur Sullivan

Neil Young

I want to live,
I want to give
Ive been a miner for a heart of gold.
Its these expressions I never give
That keep me searching for a heart of gold
And Im getting old.
Keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And Im getting old.

The man in black

"Hello I am Johnny Cash"

I spent most of my Saturday listening to Johnny Cash.

One of the most talented musicians to have ever walked this planet.
Be it his trademark, train like rhythm, be it his deep voice. One is spellbound the moment the head phones are on!

If you have not yet heard Mr Cash play, then I would recommend the following numbers for starters

I walk the line
Ring of fire
Long black veil
Folsom prison blues
Heart of Gold
Boy named Sue
I've been everywhere
:)

And the icing on the cake for me was this wonderful video having the legendary Roger Miller improvising with Johnny cash on "King of the Road"

Comic!

Found some time in the middle of the Project I just rolled off and the Project I am rolling on to :)
Decided to play with Photoshop and Freehand.

Result: A comic strip showing the ThoughtWorks reccruitment process :D

Movies that deserve a separate review post

I am not a big Ironman comics fan, in fact the Ironman comic I tried to read completely bored me.
despite all that, the movie was fantastic! so much so that for a brief period (a brief period mind you!) the Ironman Screen saver will replaces my customary Batman Screensaver)

The movie itself has all the makings of a wonderful Superhero movie. I have always liked the 'origin' superhero movies, and this one kicks *ss in every department.
I watched this twice! go watch it now!




I am a big fan of Guy Ritchie movies, and this movie faithfully copies his style of direction.

I LOVED this movie! The gangsters, the corrupt cops, the pretty hooker, the gambling and beer loving hero. simply super!

I am now a definite fan of Abhay Deol, After Manoram 6 feet under and Ek chalis ki...

oh and if you are the kind that likes mushy romantic movies about angel faced people, stay away from this one.

Movieees!

Snatch
Super! Guy Ritchie, Britans answer to Quentin Tarantino does live up to his reputation here

Death at a Funeral
A typical Brit comedy, dark and at times gross.
A good weekend watch though.

Superbad
Err had heard a lot about this movie, the screenplay at times had me in splits, but other than that, not much really.

Grandma’s Boy
I was pleasantly surprised with this comedy, about a 30 something video game tester who is forced to live with his Grandma. Yes it is a Stoner movie, yes it has some toilet humour, but its wackiness got me.

Summer of 42’
Hmm, a movie about coming of age, decent enough.

Good Luck Chuck!
WTF!

Hitman
If you want action, here is some. But it follows all the paths already taken and the plot is nothing great.

City of GOD
Fantastic! Must Watch!

When in Mangalore...

May saw us in Mangalore !

There was a wedding to attend and of course the added benefits of having wonderful beaches around :)

The wedding I shall deal with in the learnings section of this post, but first here is a glimpse of Kaup beach (for reasons as yet unknown, Kaup is pronounced Kapu :|)








Learnings from the trip/attending a Mangalorean christian wedding

Learning #1: When given a glass of wine, do NOT drink it up immediately !, wait till you see at the very least 200 other people drink. Lest you down your glass of wine and then realise you were supposed to hold on to it for 30 minutes and wait for the bride and the groom to sip their wine first.



Learning #2: When some one over the microphone asks the crowd to stand up and bless the couple, do NOT stand up and raise your right hand in Heil Hitler style just because everyone around you is doing the same. Lest you realize that everyone around you is at least 40 years old and you need to -at the very minimum - be elder to the couple in order to bless them.

Affecting an Accent

Whats with trying on a Firangi accent? How many times have you seen an American try and talk in an Indian accent to either be 'helpful' or to show-off?
Well I for one, have never seen that happen. I know a couple of firangi acquaintances try and learn Hindi, and learn to speak it quite well!

But I find so many people around me, producing different accents for different occasions/contexts.
A firangi asks you a questions and out comes the accent.

"Yeaaah, I mind ahhctuaaly"

Arre! subah mere saath baat ho rahi thi to "Ahhctuaaly" ko aap "Actually" keh rahe thhe.


Personally, I think nothing sounds as stupid as an artificial accent.
I am not buying it if you tell me your 3 month, 2 year, stint in America/UK naturally got you an accent that keeps changing
(I doubt if a 3 month stay in Bangladesh will give a Bangla tinge to your accent. Selective absorption of accent then?)

Hey! be comfy the way you are, if nothing else, at least you will save me the effort of cringing in disgust!

Back from a wonderful vacation !

Yes, Hampi again :)

Random Ramblings

Ah, the pleasure of winning a game of scrabble after trailing at one point 36 to 127 is unparalleled. :D

Unparalleled is the irritation one feels when after two weeks of contemplation one, suddenly at the last moment realises, hey "Actually we should postpone it, a couple of these guys cannot make it" :|

Also unparalleled one feels is Blogger.com's audacity to delete a 4 year old blog, and then not respond when questioned! its true it happened to a friend! unnerving!

The joy of designing your own personalised T-shirt and gifting it to a friend is unparalleled as well :D

Movieeees

Manorama 6 feet under
What-e-beauty of a movie, simply loved it! A wonderful effort at making an Indian Film Noir movie, excellent!
Most people I spoke to did not seem to like it, but oh well, Sometimes the majority only means... :P

Alexander
Puke! Colin Farrell stumbled through the movie looking like he suffered from an irritable bowel syndrome.

No Country for old men
Watch it for Javier Barden, never before have I seen a more disturbing villain in any form of cinema. Excellent performance!
Also, the Cohen brothers have their own style of directing. The most unexpected things happen at the least expected times. This is one thriller you do not want to miss.

Monty Python- Life of Brian
Is this the same group that conceived the brilliant "Fish Called Wanda" ? surprising, the much acclaimed Monty Python falls flat.
Only one scene evoked laughter, the one where Caesar stumbles through his pronunciation evoking uncontrolled snigger from his centurions.
and only one scene made me go wooow
The scene where the entire group is crucified and Eric Idle (one of the members being crucified), begins singing "Look at the bright side of life" as the credits start rolling.

Else I do not understand what the big deal (Biggus Dealus? :P ) is about Monty Python.

Good Fellas
Decent gangster movie, but tends to get boring. IMDB rates it as #15 of all time great movies. I disagree. The Untouchables is easily a better movie in the Genre. Watch it for Joe Pesci's portrayal of a mobster.

Wonderland
A biopic about the Wonderland Murders, bad movie!

Pink Panther
Steve Martin's Inspector Closeau tries hard, and fails to live up to Peter Sellers' Inspector Closeau

Judging a book by its fly-leaf

Today I took out a book (Calvin and Hobbes), that someone happened to gift me (reasons unknown). To my horror and disgust I realised that there exist people who gift books for the sake of gifting them, I would understand a gift given as a formality, but to gift a book and not bother to jot down a couple of words on the fly-leaf is outrageous !
Why would this person (whom I hold [held?] in high regard) do such a thing?
I wonder. For once this lifetime, I just don't feel like reading the book :)

Thanks, but no thanks!

On the brighter side of things, I did get another book (Dilbert, this time) that has a fly-leaf covered with the funniest of comments, making the gift immediately a personalised one !
also got the most beautiful set of PG Wodehouse!

Thank ye for your thoughtfulness

Hampi

Easily the best place I have been to in recent times, Hampi in its golden age was a rich and bustling city by the banks of the river Tungabhadra, the capital of the prosperous Vijayanagar Empire.

What makes Hampi special today is the fact that, it transports you back to the age of its glory instantly.

All the streets are 'intact', all the temples are 'intact' (of course the Deccan Sultans destroyed the idols and lots of the architecture), its as if only the people have moved on, leaving behind the empty shell of a once thriving city.

Hampi is poetry in stone, a must visit place.
Also visit a restaurant called the 'Mango Tree'.

Take a look at the pictures and learn of things you can do in Hampi:


Hire a two wheeler - the best way to visit most places spread across a 10 sq km area


Enjoy the lovely architecture


Stroll through the well maintained gardens of the Palace


Trek up hillocks


Take a coracle ride on the river Tungabhadra


Take a nap!


Lie down on the rocks surrounded by beautiful structures, waiting for ...


a beautiful sunset!


Have a blast!

Open Sesame

I wish it were just those two magical words that would open the doors, but its a bigger number of magical words one needs to remember today.

Here is a list of places I need to remember (complex) passwords for! The list is too long for my liking

My laptop
My Desktop - home
Lotus Notes -my office email client
Yahoo Mail/Yahoo Messenger - My personal Mailbox
Google - Blog, Youtube, Gmail, Gtalk
My Desktop on the client site
IMDB
My Bank
My ATM pin
Stickcricket.com
Facebook
Deviantart.com - my favorite site for stock photos
My RSA pin to remote access office network
and ofcourse
The passwords for the Application that we are currently building

Whew! Ali Baba had it easy!

Taare Zameen Pe

I liked the movie! but ironic how, Aamir Khan's character has this dialogue that (rightly!) admonishes the parents for trying to make children part of a rat race to nowhere and how senseless competition can break a child.

And then, the kid after the movie on being nominated in the best child artiste category, proclaims that he deserved the nomination for Best Hero or something along those lines since he was the crux of the movie!

Sadness.

Well having said that, the movie was very well made and the only thing that kept going through my mind as I watched it was, relief for having parents that never asked me to or forced me to study! :D

They always let me do my own thing, trusting me that I knew best!

I do know of people who have frittered away their childhood in the mechanised rat race that is Bombay, studying to achieve those 90's and 100's, today as I see them, I wonder what they have attained that is so different from me, all I see is childhoods lost in back to back tuitions and the like.

NICE road

Last weekend saw u on the NICE road :)
Here is a view of the BMIC corridor that will connect Bangalore and Mysore.


picture taken by Raj

Movies

Big Fish
Fantastic Movie ! A must watch for all you lovers of 'Forrest Gump', if you have never heard of it, well what can I do?

A Fish called Wanda
Aha! the best comedy I have seen in recent times, the Monty Python gang gets together to create a sublime comedy that scores every ball!

Before Sunrise
Decent movie, but if people tell you it is the best etc, watch it unbiased before you decide whether it deserves to be so highly rated.
Bad dialogues and artificial Conversation ruin some good acting and a very impressive concept. Having been in a situation where these characters find themselves, I know that one does not talk such bullsh*t such as the characters are made to talk through 95% of the movie, trying so hard to sound intellectual, GOD it hurts.
The movie does have some high points
- The 'telephone' conversation
- The poet by the river, who writes poetry for money
being the ones that come to mind

8mm
ummm a wee bit disturbing, but an edge of the seat thriller. I like it!

Transformers
Brilliant! I have never been a fan of the animated series, but watching this movie had the same effect like watching the dinos in Jurrasic park for the first time. Fabulous FX

Crank
Jason Statham, well out and out action movie, but does have a decent plot. decent!

Bourne Ultimatum
Yes sir! it lives upto all the build up :) move over James Bond, Jason Bourne is here!

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?"