one more..

I dont know when it actually happened
Still wondering, not able to comprehend
Not everything can really be reasoned

with all my fears lessened
the heart feels more lightened
and the life seems more brightened

With the days now flattened
the feelings of bliss in me burgeoned
with a spark that sharply glistened

With my heart more widened
I welcome this change fecund
and have a new life Summoned

Just an attempt..

Sometimes you dont know why
The only limit is the sky
For the wings of love to fly!

The rivers might dry,
but the spirits always high..
The best way you try,
to avoid every sigh!!

The smallest of the ply
gives boundless joy
When done for thy!

Jakarta

Very reluctantly I packed my bag to the last destination of the project, Indonesia! I heard volumes about the place, none of which motivated me towards the advent of the journey. If you have to do, you have to! This was one such trip, where I marched ahead because I had to. Having noted a couple of Indian eat outs, I decided not to roam around the place much. I reached the airport at 11:30AM. After getting the visa on arrival, I was wondering where the baggage chain is.. without realizing that I need to go through the immigration. The line for the immigration seemed endless. No wonder it took 2 hrs to finish the process and come out of the airport.

After a tough competition between the two parties, with my heavy eyes waiting to catch some sleep at one end and heaps of work at office not willing to let me rest at the other end, needless to say that the former lost the battle and I was at work by 3:00PM. But the war continued in the office and finally at 7:30PM it reached the yield point when the hunger in my stomach also aided my sleepy eyes. I walked across the street to a restaurant called "Ganesha", which is around 10 minutes walk from my office. Contrary to Singapore and Taiwan, this place is devoid of zebra crossing. I had to run past the junction to reach the other end safely. At the other end, there was a typical "awara" looking guy sitting on his bike and calling me towards him. I ignored him and reached the restaurant. I ordered a veg biryani and got it packed and set on my way back to the hotel so that I can relish my dinner taking my own sweet time.

At every 20 foot distance, there are a group of guys sitting on the bikes or standing next to them and trying to call me - 'hello miss!'. I ignored them all and walked as fast as I could to my hotel. It was a very different experience to have on the first day of your stay at any country. With all that I heard about this place, this wierd encounter made me dislike this place further. Had my veg biryani with various thoughts running in my head. I went to bed pretty early, giving the credit of the hard earned battle to my eyes.

Just like the popular news channels selling and reselling the same news again and again early in the morning till the viewers have it all in their heads word by word, I shared my experience with a few of my colleagues at office. One of them enlightened me - "Did u know something? Bikes are a mode of transportation here, just like the auto rickshaws in India. Those guys would have called you thinking you to be a prospective passenger to them - 90% probability. However, please dont go alone on the streets late in the night". Late in the night??? and 7:30 PM!! I was dumbstruck!

Hope!

After losing all the hopes on going Back to India anytime before 4th June, I just gave it a try and requested to go to India over this weekend. To my surprise, the stake holders confirmed that I am not required at Indonesia before monday(24/05/2010). I really was on cloud 9. I informed all the people that I knew that I am coming over to India over the weekend. My excitement knew no bounds yesterday with the thought that I will be travelling home(Hyd) instead of Bangalore. I am really not exaggerating when i say that I almost started to fly in the air with the excitement. You wont believe me if I tell you that I had spent two whole hours in packing the suitcase 'back home'!Dint realize it myself!

Knowing the fact that it is a very short trip of 2 days, I started calculating the number of hours that I would be home and the various activities that I need to do - discuss about MY engagement arrangements, finish the left over shopping, catch up with a few people, the list goes on. I estimated time for each of these and was wondering if I would be left with any 'free' time as such! well, while I am still on the major planning spree, the travel desk at my company gave me a flabbergasting news! - "The tickets.... are not yet confirmed! Its on waiting list.. It wont be possible to get them confirmed! We will try our best." Try your best??!!? But I am psychologically prepared! It would have been a different case if I weren't informed yesterday that I could go to India. After enrooting the hopes in me, its tough to accept the change..

I truely want to go back..I always believed in - 'If you really want something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it'. I should be in the flight by this time tomorrow if things go as per my expectations. I am still sitting here and blogging holding bundles of uncertainity behind. I am filled with endless hope though the boat is drifting towards hopeless end. And tell u what? As I just finished the sentence before this, the pop up on the task bar indicated the arrival of a new mail in my inbox. Guess who it is from? Its from the travel desk...As I opened the mail, I was probably more curious than u are while reading this.. whether it will be a confirmation mail saying that the tickets are not obtained? or will it be the reality to my hope? And.. Yes!! my ticket is confirmed to Bangalore, though not Hyderabad. I will be travelling on a different airlines, with a delay of 3 hours to expected time! :) :) :)

Missing her a lot!

It has exactly been three weeks since I departed from her, though it feels like three months! Not a single day went by without having her in my thoughts. Nothing in this world can divert my attention from her..Never realized when it actually happened.. Only after parting from her did I comprehend that she means a lot to me! Having spent over 24 years in her esteemed presence, I really am feeling the emptyness she left behind, with her absence around me. I cant tell u how much I am longing to go back and see her. I know this parting is just momentary. I will surely go back to her very soon. Still, I cant help missing her, from the bottom of my heart. I think about her when I walk across the street to the bus stop nearby, when I had to remain contended with the stuff that i eat for my lunch, on my way back from office, while wandering around the malls, over my telephonic conversations back home, while going to bed... pretty much every moment I am away from her! I love her, I love my India!

Sravani Kanamarlapudi and me!

For quite a few years, whenever I open a google page and type my own name, 'Sravani Kanamarlapudi' and search for the results, along with the various pages related to me, I also noticed another page which doesn't belong to me. Sravani Kanamarlapudi from IITR. What a coincidence! A few years back, I got a friend request from a guy from IITR. Having seen a few mutual friends, I thought I knew him and was not able to place him. Apparently, he sent the friend request mistaking me to his friend at IITR. Today, I went to "little India" to meet him and got introduced to the person in that page which does not belong to me on the goolge search of my name, Sravani Kanamarlapudi. The coincident lines almsot turned into concurrent lines at a point as we spoke. She is also brought up at Hyd.

The curiosity in the six eyes staring at us was flashing bright. Her native is in Prakasam dist too. And more so, it is also a small village close to a town called Ongole. Oh common, dont tell me she will end up to be a distant relative of mine and I have not known her for all these years!! The three folks who were with us couldn't take the suspence any longer, they are all set to hear the names of the villages. And.. to break the climax, they are not the same :) But, its quite close. It felt really nice to meet someone with the same first and last names as that of mine, who was born and brought up at the same place as I was, whose native is in the same district and close to the same town, similar to mine, who did her under graduation at a reputed place just like I did, whose profile I have been seeing all through ever since I started exploring the internet..Though it was a very short meet, its a very exciting and memorable one!

Carrot juice: Disaster

Happy after having a delicious North Indian thali at a food court near my office in Singapore, I wanted to complete the lunch with a juice. At the juice stall, the peeled carrots were red and looked really yummmmmy. So, without any second thoughts, chose a carrot juice. Neither did I explicitly specify to add sugar in it, nor did she take the initiative to do so, having known the fact that the carrots were not sweet enough. After a sip, I realized that it would be great if it had a spoon of sugar in it. I looked around the counter to locate some sugar. Right next to her was a bottle of white crystals of the same size as that of the cystral sugar in India. The bottle had a huge circular opening(about 1 cm in diameter) at the top to take the white crystals out of it as against to the small opening on a bottle of salt. After stuffing in a pinch of it into my glass, I just helped myself to taste a few crystals only to realize that I saved a big disaster! It was indeed SALT!!! I have seen crystal salt, which is close to about half a centimeter in length. I had never(never before today) seen the so called crystal salt that looks just similar to sugar(in size), in a bottle with a huge opening in an outrageously deceptive way. Irritated with their wierd salt, I was happy that I saved my carrot juice and myself from that illusionary material. Amidst all this, Naveen with an intention of helping me came running to hold the disposable glass of juice from my hand and tested the strength of his hand against that of the plastic glass and finally ended up successfully splashing it everywhere including my cute top, thus making the disaster inevitable!

booze is the culprit!

Initially I used to keep the people who booze at a distance. I somehow hated that habit for a couple of reasons. One of them being the fact that I dont like anything that makes a person a way too addicted to it(There are a few exceptions to it though ;)). Second, people take it as an excuse to do all kinds of insane things under the cover of booze. They always have an excuse to say, 'I was not in my senses yesterday. Sorry about my behaviour.' How stupid!!?

Oflate I changed my opinion as I realized that not all people who booze are bad. Neither there is any truth in my generalization that ALL people get out of their senses after boozing nor is there 100% surity that ALL who drink are actually addicted to it. May be some of them are. oh, they really are.. But, not all of them! Having said that, I must also say that it is still valid to say that the actual character of a person can be judged or seen after he is drunk. Well, I still HATE that habit from the core, as I always did. But, I dont hate all of them who booze!

Singapore Flier

Its a lazy sunday afternoon when a couple of thoughts rang the bell to drive away my lazyness. The 1st time I stepped into Singapore, the taxi driver showed me a giant wheel kinda structure and told me that its called Singapore flier and you should not leave this place without experiencing it. "This is called Singapore flier? It looks like a bigger version of the giant wheel at the Indian exhibitions! wats a big deal in it?" This was my reaction on day 1.

Today I went out to City hall nearby, to meet my friend's friend(Swapnil) and his wife(Neha). I found out the directions to the city hall from the concierge at the hotel. Set out for the meet. I got down from the bus at some place which i thought was the destination. Yes, it was the destination. I walked across to the MRT where i saw them. Though i had not met them before, it felt really good to meet them at this new place. After talking for a while, we went around the mall for shopping. I dint find anything worth buying. So, i just got a pair of earrings as a token of the place.

We walked onto the road. Swapnil left both of us to spend the rest of the evening and went to attend a meeting at office. Neha was very friendly and bubbly girl..(Can you believe this? I claim to be very bubbly and I am praising some else?!). We could see Singapore flier from the place we were standing. At once, i recollected what my taxi driver said. Neha also said that she had not been to the place and asked if we can go along? We both picked up a map from the nearest customer service stall, kept asking people around and managed to reach the place. Like a typical airport, they scan your baggage, check the barcode of your ticket, and finally let u into one of the capsules of the giant wheel. It was indeed huge.. So huge that each capsule could accommodate more than 15 people without the slightest discomfort. Luckyly, our capusle had only 8 of us.

We went crazy once we reached the top most point. The wheel rotates very slowly. It takes 30 mins to complete one rotation. It gives the view of the entire Singapore. Singapore is not that big ;). Also, it gives a bit of insight into Indonesia. It was a very good sight. Especially we went in at around 6:50, which was a very perfect timing. If there was a running commentry indicating the places around and explaining a bit about each, it would have amplified the experience as such.

The bus stops here in Singapore are very friendly. They have the various destinations in an index format in an alphabetical order. Against each place, there are bus numbers of all the buses which arrive at that station and go towards your destination written. On the other side of the board at the bus stop, you have the route map for each bus number. The frequency of the buses is also remarkably good. I am not exaggerating when I tell the fact that I had not waited for more than 5 minutes at any bus stop for the last 5 days that I am here. I am truely impressed!!

Thanks to Swapnil and Neha for changing my lazy sunday to fun filled memorable evening!! Thanks to dada for facilitating our meet..

Cruise @ Singapore

Well prepared to rock at Singapore, i made a big checklist with all the things that i want to do.. and places I want to visit. One of those was to go on a ferry. Yesterday, we had mid project celebrations on a cruise which was exclusively for us(ANZ). It was quite a good timing. The cruise started at 7PM, just after the sun set. As the darkness amplified with time, the beauty of Singapore and the fun of the cruise journey also augmented. Though I dint get the pleasure of sitting at the edge of the cruise with the water splashing across my legs at regular intervals, it gave me immense pleasure to be sandwiched between the pleasant blue sky and the deep blue water.

Before the cruise started, i had a hundred questions running in my little head.. Aren't we starting at a wrong time? Isn't the water current high at this time? How do we ensure that the people are spread across the cruise and not concentrated at only one side of it eventually leading the boat to topple down? How deep is this water? The water indeed looked wild before starting. I dont know where all these questions were side lined once we were on our way. I was too busy enjoying every minute of the beautiful ride. All of us screamed in unison when we were half way through, at the beautiful site of fireworks on a distant island..

With the cold breeze blowing across, the pleasing sound of water as we progress along, glittering lights here and there from the other boats around, the clowdy sky with twinkling stars, the naughty full moon intermittently hiding behind the clouds, soothing music being played.. what else do u need?? It was a place just too perfect... How I wish I had my special someone with me in such a romantic evening to just make it a complete one!

Haunted?

Thanks to Vijay for sending me across an article on the internet, which says that the hotel i was staying at in Taipei is haunted. The story says that as it was built on some cremation ground, the hotel is haunted. Though i was scared for a few minutes, i realized that its all a psychological feeling. The first day i stepped into the hotel(when i dint know the story behind the ghots dwelling in that place), I heard a few sounds outside. I rushed to the see through glass and realized that the acoustics of the building were indeed pathetic. If any living creature walks across the corridor, you can hear the foot steps inside your room. It can be understood if a guy next door is opening the door and you can hear a vibration in your door. But, its surprising to see that if a guy opposite door opens/closes his door, you can feel the jerk in your door. Now, if a person enters the hotel with all the historic knowledge on the place, he surely will attribute all the above to ghosts and will not dare to investigate, or even try to see the truth behind it.

After a few days, my friend Mr.Felix Suresh Chelladurai gives me his version of the story supporting the ghosts in the hotel. His narration skills probably were enough convincing that it kept me worried for the next two days. The moment i enter the hotel room, i used to play 'vishnusahasranamam' from my mobile and feel that it clears off the ghosts in the room. I happened to stay on the 13th floor. 13 as a number is not considered sacred. There is another story which says that the ghosts cannot climb beyond the 11th floor. Sometimes, fear is the worst feeling than anything else in this world. It kills the person every minute! It conquers the person to the extent that they even fail to think normally and come out of it. After giving myself sometime, I could answer back every story that Felix had told me with a proper justification. I managed to come out of the fear and enjoyed my stay!

Expedition!

It was a foggy night when Naveen, Anand, PC and I left office at Taiwan. PC decided to remain contended with the drinks. The rest of us went into a vast food court in the next building to have our dinner. Without a second thought, we moved into "Indian food palace", where the guy showed us his watch and said, its 10 mins past the closing time. We looked around the food court only to realize the fact that everyone has closed down. Do you know what time it was then? 9:10PM!!! Yes, Taiwan closes down by 9PM, except the night markets! We have already had an awful experience at the night market one day. With a hope to find a few good souvenirs or some petty stuff that would help us reminisce Taiwan, we walked into a night market on a rainy day. We probably chose the wrong night market. It was filled with food stalls, which were all competing in emanating the aroma of the local food. The fragrance reminded us of some sewage in India!

Tired and hungry, we started looking around with a wild hope to find any open food palace. After walking over kilometer and a half, we found a pizza hut which was open. We rushed in, placed our order and sat there, calculating the length of each minute. We finally got our order in about 40 minutes. We gulped the pizzas and walked back to the hotel.

People at Taiwan are really very hospitable. But, it would have been a good place to hang around, if only they all knew english! It takes energy equivalent to a meal, to explain the people what you want for your meal! I expect Taiwan to be good at Chinese food.. Fried rice is a common dish at any chinese place. Alas, that was just my assumption! or a common misconception.. It took us about 10 minutes to explain a lady at a stall in a food court that we were asking her for egg fried rice. We had to show her the photo of an egg, rice and enact the frying act before her to make her understand what we were looking for. That was not all.. May be we weren' t really good at mime or acting.. There was a girl around who knew english. She did the honours of translating. We were really glad to see that she made it exactly how we wanted!

It was an experience in itself, to hunt for what we want. We have to hunt and explore for it because what they have is something that we surely wont like to have, especially for a vegetarian. Once we figure it out, we used to spend the rest of the time trying to explain the customizations to the cook and wait with the fingers crossed till we see the outcome.!