First Encounter with Flight

This was my first flight journey and and in one sentence, everything went smooth without much drama . Flight was from Chennai at 4.45AM, and the route which I took was Chennai->Doha->Washington->Raleigh. Reached Chennai airport around 1AM and it was pouring all through the night. Because of the rain the whole airport was a big mess. I went to the Qatar counters and weighed my luggages. Chennai airport guys were kind enough to allow excess of weight than the specified limit. After luggage check-in and getting the boarding passes, spent some time with mom and dad. Flight was delayed by 45 minutes from Chennai, after the immigration I was waiting in the lounge for the flight. After boarding the flight there was a video running regarding the safety measures, the suggested methods of saving life were pretty scary, I don’t know how much those life saving techniques really work . The first flight was Qatar airways to Doha, the take off was smooth and breakfast was served after the take off. I opened it and was completely surprised to see Pongal and Masal Dosa being served in Qatar airways. Happily completed the breakfast and took a quick nap since I had no sleep the last whole night. It was time for landing in Doha and my seat was a window one, had a very nice view of the city and airport. After all the security checks immediately boarded the connecting flight to Washington which was supposed to be a pretty long journey of 14 hours. This time the flight was huge, and there was a guy sitting between me and my friend. Every seat had a separate TV which kept me busy through out the journey. Again the same safety videos and take off was smooth from Doha International airport, I was served a another breakfast and I had no clue which time zone I was in and why was breakfast being served . After breakfast it was a marathon of movies, now and then walking across the flight to prevent swelling or numbness in legs(lot of guys scared me on this). After ~9-10 hours lunch was served again I had no clue in which time zone I was in. It was close to 8pm Indian time and I was having lunch . Again the landing at Washington Dulles Airport was smooth. Washington Dulles Airport was huge and there was a big immigration queue. After getting the I94 form stamped I was let in, fortunately there was absolutely no security checks and unfortunately there was a 7 hours transit in Washington Dulles airport. The next flight was United Airlines, did the baggage check-in and sat in the waiting lounge, I was not able to keep my eyes open, I did all possible things to keep me awake by walking, listening to music, etc etc. Finally had some Chicken Panini for 7$ – two slices of bread with a  chicken piece stuffed between and this cost me 7$ and this was my first spending in USD, I was literally crying for spending ~350Rs on one sandwich . Again lot of security checks and finally I boarded the flight, I immediately feel asleep and only after flight landed I got up, and it was around 11.30 PM Raleigh time. Collected the baggages and Maitri – Indian Student Association of NCSU was already waiting for us with a big warm smile on their faces. Trolley for carrying a bag was 3$, cried one more time and told to myself not convert USD to INR from now. Balaji – Maitri President (as well my friend) had come for the pickup and my temporary accommodation for me was given in his room itself. I had the privilege of staying with the Indian Student Association President . Maitri took us to a short tour of the campus at 1.30AM just on the way to the temporary accommodation. Had a glimpse of the campus and was really excited. I will take the whole 2 years of my course time just to figure out where things are located in the campus, campus was that huge. Came to Bala’s home mailed people saying I have reached safely and went for a sleep.

Auction Comes Live in Bangalore to Mysore Bus

People who have watched Pithamagan movie will definitely remember how Surya and his gang do auctioning in train. I saw it live, yeah I did. I was travelling to Mysore from Bangalore on a Saturday morning, climate was not hot, heavy traffic as expected on Saturdays. Once the bus crossed the city, a fat guy with thin beard started walking to the middle of the bus and stood in the middle of the bus for close to five minutes. Then slowly he started talking about auctioning, how it works and what is his agenda for the day. Even though he conveyed the entire message in Kannada I was able to understand, believe me . The scene was exactly how Bala had portrayed in his movie Pithamagan. The guy started with a small blanket, and the starting price was Rs.30, people started bidding, a lady directly jumped to Rs50, then people started raising the price slowly to Rs55, Rs70 and finally it was sold out for Rs150. The way auction was conducted by the guy was amazing, he was able to convince people of the good quality of the blanket, what was the original price and how much will they save by buying it here. I believe the sheer reason for the increase of selling price from Rs30 to Rs150 is because his communication skills. He also had an assistant, auctioning was the main guys work, the assistant helped him in collecting money, getting out new items for auction. Once an item is sold out every one who had bid for the item gets a prize (consolation kind of). People got pens, notepads etc – remember Surya giving out a soap box saying “Alayamani padathula abhinaya saraswathi, kannadathu payankilli SarojaDevi payan paduthuna soapu dappa” . This auction went for the next few hours, for the first few minutes I was keenly observing everyone involved in the auction, the fat guy selling, his assistants, people bidding, was pretty interesting. Any interesting incident after few minutes will lose its importance, this was no exception, I opened my laptop and got my head into “Megamind” movie, by the time movie ended all the auction was over and the guys disappeared.

I Dont Get Excited Anymore..

It has been quite some time I have blogged, main reasons being Facebook and Twitter. My previous post was in April, so it has been approximately 7 months since I blogged. Finally I completed two years of corporate life and life seems to have a bit stabilized. When I joined company lot of things excited me, salary credited message from bank, weekends, visiting home, going online, playing badminton, watching movies etc.. now things have drastically changed, all the above mentioned doesn’t excite me anymore, now a different set of things excite me, like good food, some time away from computer, watching nature etc. Work wise, I used to get excited when I get the expected output but now I get excited when I write good quality code or when I design classes in a better way. This is the only change I am happy about. I can’t believe so much has changed since two years. I am a person who doesn’t like changes but life doesn’t spare anyone, looking forward for more exciting things

Goa trip

After sending out chain of mails finally people agreed on Goa. I also was eyeing for a Goa trip because of the hype created by the GOA movie. Started from Bangalore on 2nd April at 2pm in train. Reached Hubli around 9 had dinner and got into Hubli Vascodagama Link. Needles in the watch struck 12 and i started getting calls from friends since it was my birthday. This year it was a totally different birthday experience, celebrating birthday in Goa with friends.. what else can you expect on your birthday !!

Day 1:

From station to the resort we hired cabs(prepaid ones, still quiet costly). Resort was located near the candolim beach. Resort was very good. Cleaned up ourselves and we were ready to rock Goa. We needed 4 vechiles, even though it was off season we wouldnt get 4 vechiles together. After trying our best for more than 1 hour, hired 3 Honda Activa’s and 1 Avenger, bought a map of Goa city, so that marked the start of our riding journey. First spot was Calangute beach which had a lot of adventurous water sports. The beach was crowded(i wouldnt imagine the crowd in season time) and after bargaining with the people finally we agreed for the package of 5 games – 800 per head. All five games were amazing, only after paying the money i found out every game was scary:). But after one by one i started enjoying. I enjoyed Parasailing and waterbike the most. It was early evening around 4pm, every one were already busted out and were extremely hungry. Went to a hotel and tasted the goan food. Adding to the fun ChenniSuperKings vs Rajasthan Royals match was on. Murali Vijay was blasting the opponent bowlers, we saw him completing his century. Goa is full of beaches, next was Arambol beach. The distance to be travelled was more, as time went the breeze was cool. We had taken a volley ball, so started playing as soon as we reached the beach. Came back all the way riding and finally stopped at a hotel near the resort for dinner. That was the end of day 1 at Goa, had a very peaceful sleep at night.

Day 2:

Day 2 started with Aguda Fort. There wasnt much to see in the fort except for the view from the top of the fort. It was scorching hot and we all were sweating badly. Next destination was Miramir Beach. On the way saw some chruches. Took some photos in Miramir beach. Ideal thing next was for a cruise trip. I went with a lot of expectation when i heard the name cruise(sounds cool), the tickets were pretty cheap 150 per head and it was sun set trip. I would term the drive “not bad”, it was a 1.15 hour trip around the Mandovi river. Only one thing was left, Shopping. After much confusion on the route finally reached 18th June road. Since it was sunday most of the shops were closed. Looking Panjim with all lights lit up i couldnt believe i was still in India, Goa looks awesome at night!! We started back to resort. On reaching candolim we stopped for dinner at a hotel and people there didnt have roti flour !! Shocked by the way they were running around buying required things for preparing food. Finally after waiting for 1.5 hours got the ordered food. Food was good. All over Goa food was really good, provided hotels take their own time for preparing. Reached resort by 11 and we had to get up by 4 to catch the first bus from Goa to Hubli so that we dont miss our train from Hubli at 2pm. Overall Goa is an excellent place for bachelors to hangout.

Animation Movies

Lately i have started seeing a lot of animation films in specific films by Pixar Animation Studio and have become a big fan of animation movies. Few films which i saw – Ratatouille, Wall E, Up, Cars, Finding Nemo, A Bugs Life, Kung Fu Panda and all the movies are amazing, yet to watch ToyStory series. I had an impression that animation movies are only for kids, but after watching all these movies came to a conclusion that it is not for kids, there is no age limit for watching animation movies. I wanted to rate the movies mentioned above, but i wasn’t able to do, all where equally good. In Pixar’s website there is a link called “How do we do it” which explains how animation films are made, making an animation movie is far more difficult than making a normal movie with artists(inferred this from the link). Fed up of watching Tamil movies which has the same story line, fight, sentiment blah blah blah… animation movies turned out to be very entertaining. What is creativity ? What is innovation ? I found answers for all these after watching these films.

Wayanad Trip

A trip after a long time, started as discussion in mail and came into existence. We decided on Wayanad as destination. Five guys from Chennai and six guys from Bangalore(including me), all my college mates, started from Bangalore on Friday morning in a tempo traveller. On the way had breakfast and finally reached Wayanad at 2pm. Because of long travel, every one were busted out. Directly went to the hotel,we had booked a dormitory. Refreshed ourselves, had lunch and started side seeing. First was Phantom rock. The name seemed fundu, and it was supposed to be robot shaped. After seeing the rock, we were totally disappointed, it didn’t look like a robot, it was just some three to four rocks placed one above the other. Guys choose BanasuraSagar dam as the next destination. On reaching the dam, we climbed up the dam and had a look at the view. Lot of localities were fishing in the dam. The dam seemed to be very old one. After which we tested the skills of photographers we took with us(SaiRam,Vignesh and SaiKrishna) . They tried hard to capture us in the most handsome way they could. It was almost dark and that was the last place we were able to visit that day. After having dinner, few slept and few played cards. Next day cleaned ourselves and we were heading towards Edakkal caves. This was close to a trek. There was no steps and we had to climb on the rocks, Edakkal caves had lot of carvings from the stone age. Since it was a holiday, it was heavily crowded, so climbing and getting down back took a lot time and it kept raining. After having lunch we decided to trek the Chembra peak. Unfortunately trekking is allowed only till 2pm and we reached the peak around 3pm and so we had to return back. Meenmutty and Soochipara waterfalls were in our list. On the way to Meenmutty, localities informed us that because of the heavy rain there has been land slide and people are not allowed to go to the waterfall. Guys got a bit frustrated, Pookote lake was the only option we were left with. Went for boating in lake even though it was raining. Got drenched completely and returned to the hotel. Had dinner and after few rounds of cards, jumped into bed. Me and Sairam were left with the most number of points , player with least number of points won the game. Next day guys got ready for the trekking very enthusiastically because trekking was one of the main aim of the trip. We reached Chembra peak and hired a guide. Slowly it became steep and steep. First we went to the watch tower and from there the actual trekking started. There was no path. I don’t know how do guides remember the way!! We walked all through rocks,plants,water and slowly guys started tiring. Photo session was the only motivating factor . Finally we were standing infront of the heart shaped lake. Guide asked us to remove shoes and verify whether he had got leech bite. I thought i was lucky but finally Sairam pointed out that i had a leech bite. On the way up Vins got two bites which he found out and the guide helped in removing the leeches. After washing legs and hands in the lake and ofcourse after photo session we started heading down. Almost everyone were exhausted and hungry because of the tedious trek. Had good non-veg lunch and we started towards Bangalore back. Before i end, gang includes SaiKrishna, Narayanan, Arun Prasath, Vignesh, Vins, SaiRam, MuthuKrishnan, Manoj Kumar, Ravi and Ashok. The complete trip was absolute fun and going with college mates added to the fun, thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

Cyclothon

After a long time got a chance to cycle. BSA Hercules organized Cyclothon, which was all about riding cycle. I took part in the corporate ride which is 25kms. It took approximately 1hr and 45 minutes for me to complete the total distance. The ride was at the NICE road, as the name suggests the road was very nice and smooth(NICE stands forNandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises). People from all over Bangalore came and participated in the event. People brought their cycles in car, used them for the event and took them in car back. I was amazed to see that, people give so much importance to cycling. That day night hands and legs were paining like hell !! Funny thing was i registered for 50kms , then changed it to 25km. What could have happened if i hadn’t changed, i wouldn’t have covered the whole distance !!

Never had a train experience like this ..

A part of the train journey from Mayiladuthurai to Bangalore was amazing. I am not a good orator or narrator.. but let me try describing it in the best way i could.. the train started at Mayiladuthurai, mine was 3tier AC. Only 4-5 people boarded the coach in Mayiladuthurai. The AC temp was perfect, the train started. Slowly it started raining, i lied down in the side berth near the window, coach absolutely silent, no people walking,no catering service boys,not even speech sounds were heard, i experienced the so called “pin drop silence”.. seeing the rain droplets dripping on the window pane, my mp3 playing nenjukul paythedum ma malai from Vaarnam Ayiram, full greenish fields on both side of the train .. mind was absolutely free wandering.. awesome experience !!

Jotting down

I am going to jot down a few things in this post. All these don’t need separate posts.

1. Went back to college to conduct mock interviews and to train juniors for their upcoming placements.

2. TCE Bangalore Alumni Chapter was inaugurated. But was not able to attend the function because of some unavoidable reasons.

3. Read Five point some one. Awesome book!! After reading this book i wanted to write a book on my college days. But nothing so interesting happened all through my four years of college life .

4.Participated in the company annual day. Got videos and photos. Yet to upload them.

5. Completed one year of corporate life few days back. Looking back the one year.. as usual i havent done anything concrete other than watching movies and sleeping.

6. Follow me on Twitter. On the left side panel i have added a twitter badge. On click my twitter home page will load .

Typical Characteristics of a Bachelor Software Engineer

From my point of view the following are the characteristics of a bachelor software engineer :

(i may be a typical example )

1. Go near any door and search for the access card.
2. Decide on the house to stay based on the hotels near by.
3. Open irctc.co.in and holiday list atleast twice a day.
4. Freak out every Friday night.
5. Go to trips or treks, important thing is, take photos and upload in orkut.
6. Oops how did i miss this .. stay online in Gtalk all through the day with busy status even though there is no work.
7. Computer and Internet will become the right and left hand .. can u imagine being without the right and left hand ?
8. Have mobile phone always in pocket
9. Crib on each and everything seen of the road.
10. Keep discussing on the events that happened during college days.
11. Hear songs and watch every movie inspite of knowing its bad review.
12. Think of joining some music instrument coaching.