Attitude Vs Perception!

Of late I have been hearing that I complain a lot. Well, I am neither Mrs.Perfect nor Aparichithuralu (Courtesy: Movie by name Aparichithudu). I know that I cannot go and improve the whole world and change it to be a sweet world to one and all. I always liked this one statement that my Intermediate physics sir had written in my autograph book - 'If you don't believe the life you live in, you should live the life you believe in'. Yes, it sounds so simple and nice. But not very easy to put into practice. In my opinion, things that went well are good. But you should think about the things that dint go well and start thinking about the ways and means to improve that unless you are doubtful about your confidence levels. You are right! The people who analyze such things are called 'critics'.

Each thing has a way in which it has to be handled. For instance, if you have to bring an awareness among the people around you, there is a way you motivate them by letting them know the demerits of what the current system is and telling them how things could have been made better. But, if you have to give a feedback about somebody's performance, you first tell them what they have done good and slowly let them know how they can make it better. If you notice me in one such conversations and mistake me to be complaining all the while, I would say that it is not my attitude problem, but rather your perception problem!

The inconvenient truth..

I remember very vividly.. each and every conversation I had with various people on this very interesting topic.. 'Girls do change after marriage'. I was always against this statement all this while.. mind you, i said I 'was' against it..! I don't know if I have to call it over confidence.. But I would like to refer to it as self confidence.. I always thought and still think that I can manage things quite well. Managing time for me has never been an issue so far.

Leaving all that I managed at college aside, during my tenure at Bangalore, extremely ambitious soul that I am, I had all the time to finish my work with complete commitment towards it and at the same time, I had heaps of time for my friends - friends for life, hobbies - Yes, I used to attend drawing classes after work, yoga - Again a big yes, I used to get up at 5AM in the winter season to go to yoga class before work. I had all the patience and energy to participate in GCC(Global Corporate Challenge - u may refer to http://www.gettheworldmoving.com/ for more details on this), wherein I used to walk atleast 10,000 steps a day.

The other day I had a chat with a good old friend of mine, who has always been a strong supporter of the interesting topic that I mentioned in the beginning of this blog. We had endless discussions on this topic and we never happened to even tilt towards the conclusion ever.. All he said was - 'Wait.. U will pass through that phase.. We can talk then'. Today when I gave myself enough time to leap back and look at the past few months, they just went by before even I realize that they passed by. Yes, time flew so fast.. So fast that I missed to wish a lot of my friends on their birthdays, a few of them on their anniversaries, another few of them on the occasions and festivals.. Why?? I have a list of e-mails to which I wanted to reply in detail..,but it never happened. Why?? I have quite a lot of people whom I always think about and want to ping by and check howz life rolling with them.. But that dint happen either.. Why??

There is only one answer to all the "Why??'s" and that is - 'I really dont know!'...This is why I call it the 'inconvenient truth', 'coz I still find it hard to accept that 'girls do change after marriage'! I dunno how much does it apply to a guy though!

APSRTC.in!!

There were days when I had to take my time out to hunt a nearby APSRTC counter to get a ticket booked. The guy out there at the counter always seems to be a resentful employee., showing cold shoulders to the customers most of the times, with his all time favorite answer being 'not available'. Amidst the tough competition of various private carriers offering very good customer service with their very good online reservation facilities, APSRTC finally came up with a website.

It did not take a long time after the initiative has been launched for the people to realize that nothing has changed at all! Now, the all time favorite response of the website is 'Server is busy. Please try after sometime...sorry for the inconvenience ( code: MxUXCD ).' To hell with his sorry.. Damn!I need service, not sorry!!

This is really very irritating, especially when you are in a hurry to check some information. For those of you wondering if I am being very impatient, let me explain myself. I gave the website a complete one year(Yes, that's correct. One complete year..) and still..today when I tried(Not once or twice, sixteen times over a span of 1 hour) to logon to the website, I get this ****ing response and I am really mad at them.

No wonder, our RTC is always running under loss. As a customer, what do u wish to choose? Ofcouse, a very good customer service. Its high time they re-look into their functioning and get some motivation from irctc.in(though it gives a server busy at times, we know its genuine..) or their competitors and be its own savior, lest no one can save it!!

Kittys they r named!!

This is my first blog, after my status changed from being 'single' to 'mingled' :D Yes, there is a huge gap between my last blog and this one.. Amidst so many changes, it happens u see :) I have to say that I tried to open this very dear page of mine to put it my running thoughts umpteen number of times. Well, needless to say I wasn't successful in that. However, I am back now... Lets see how I go about this time..

One of the major happening things that I see here in Vijayawada is 'kitty'. From an old man to a kid, everyone is part of one or the other kitty. Aww.. there are heaps of them! I never heard about them either in Hyderabad or in Bangalore. Not sure if its because, I dont have any of my friends or acquaintances who were part of them, or because they never existed in those places. Whatever it might be, these kittys here are categorical, i.e, Family kittys, gents only kittys and ladies only kittys. The get-togethers are normally held on sundays.

I happened to attend a family kitty called 'Walkers kitty' which was held in Haailand, on the Vijayawada-Guntur highway. My MIL, FIL, Vijay and myself went to the venue. Haailand is a water world, with a few games to play around, junk to eat over, shopping place to get looted with unreasonable prices and heaps of trees-all made of plastic for the people to suffocate and sweat all through. Four of us had a look around the place and reached the conference room, which thankfully was centralized AC, where the kitty will shortly commence.

The huge hall was divided into two sets. One set was for the women to sit and another set was for men. Oh yes, I went to a so called family kitty where the family was separated into men and women!! The kitty was very very disorganized. There were games being conducted for the people and no one seemed to pay any attention to the mike. Tell u what? It was worse than a very boring annual meeting addressed by some big shot. I am not sure if a kitty is just supposed to be very informal.. or very chaotic. To sum it up, the first kitty I attended here was a disaster as far as I am concerned and I dint like it at all...

Tirupati trip, yet again

This is the third time I walked up the hill from Tirupati to Tirumala. This trip however secured a very special place for itself in the list of my memories. We covered it in the shortest time of 4.5 hours. Surprisingly it seemed less tiring comparatively. Not sure whether the reason is due to the fact that I am pretty much acquainted with the hill or the vibrant energy of complacency in walking hand in hand with my life partner did the magic.

Being considerate to all the walking pilgrims, they gave a direct darshan ticket, which promises a 'very quick' darshan. Hold on to your curiosity till I tell u what this quick practically means. Tirumala, such a sacred place it is. I don't know if the way people and the crowd are being managed is the best that could be done, considering the huge numbers of pilgrims who visit the temple every day or if there are better ways of managing. There were two queues there at the vaikuntam entrance - one for the sheeghra (Rs.300/-) and one for the pilgrims who walked up the hill. Both the queues were not moving by the time we reached there. The in-charge, when asked about the timings when the queues will be released said that the former will be opened at 9PM whereas the later would be opened at 8PM and will take very less time for the darshan and will be quick and direct. Thanks to him, the rest of our relatives deferred the darshan to the following day. Vijay and I joined the direct darshan line at 8PM since both of us had the quick darshan tickets.

The sheeghra darshan queue was opened at 8:15PM and the other line where both of us queued up was released only at 8:45PM. Not sure if this was a sudden change or the in-charge who gave us the information misguided us either deliberately or unknowingly. No announcements what so ever happen there. The people are always left behind with various question marks on their faces, and the rumors spreading like a grape-yard. I don't know if the management really wants it this way or would it cost too much to set up the infrastructure for an announcement system that it is not affordable.

Isn't temple supposed to be unbiased and impartial and treat all the people - the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterates, the class and the mass in the same way? If an VIP is visiting the temple, he or she is doing it for his or her own interest. Hence, this is considered as his personal work. How ethical is it for him to stop the entire crowd (atleast a few thousands) for almost half an hour for his own personal interest of visiting the God at peace all alone?? Atleast, if there is a set time which says, from so and so time to so and so time(could span for half an hour to one hour) all the lines will be held, if there is a VIP visiting the temple then, which is announced and documented and known to the public that is understandable. But, its truely irksome if the whole line has to just wait at which ever time whoever comes with a VIP tag.

Amidst all this, there was a group of around 10 people who spoke in a native accent of Kannada, who came with the sole aim of pushing the people ahead of them forward and drive a few kids to cry out of suffocation and disturb the peace of the entire line. I tried out my Kannada skills to tell them not to rush and that they wont gain anything more than10 minutes by thrashing all the people around. Instead, they can cooperate and all of us can have a peaceful time. All my efforts proved futile. Not sure if my Kannada was that bad or their determination was that strong. Thanks to the management for making only 10 percent of the fans hanging there functional. Not sure if the rest of them are really non functional due to some issue or were not switched on with any definite intention. Vijay tried to tell a few guys out there to turn the fans on at the very least and that will be a big favor to all of us. They listened to him patiently and left on their way with zero action towards the petition. The only thing that I don't like about Tirumala temple is the fact that there is absolutely NO transparency what so ever. Is there any one at all who can question the management and the way things are being handled? If yes, are they really doing it? or should we wake them up and remind them of their duty?

We somehow managed through and got across being pushed from all the sides. There are a few people from TTD staff standing right in front of the Lord, who are trained for dragging people and throwing them aside without even bothering whether they have fallen down and broken any of their parts or have balanced and intact. If the crowd is peaceful, they cannot digest that fact. They have to create a havoc by taking charge of pushing people aside and creating a chaotic atmosphere., without which their day becomes incomplete. By God's grace, we had a decently good darshan at about 11:55PM. Well, that was a quick darshan with great regards and concerns to the pilgrims who walked up the hill for all of you who dint know what a quick darshan meant(4 complete hours).

Its really high time some one took the initiative of waking up all the people who have the authority of questioning things and thus helping a great deal with a few small amendments which can mean a lot to the people.

Almost died!

Have u ever had this experience of very narrowly escaping death??? I had it on 4th June 2010 with the grace of the captain in Singapore airlines from Singapore to Bangalore. It was a huge aircraft with lots of people in it. The takeoff at Singapore was pretty smooth. I was enjoying the ride while watching their latest collection of movies - Karthik calling Karthik and Alice in the wonderland., till the captain announced that we would be landing in the next 20 mins and asked the cabin crew to prepare for the landing, which included snatching away all our headphones.

While the total attention was on the flight and its landing, there was a free fall of the flight for a few seconds(I guess a few seconds.. dont even remember how long it was for). The people in the flight started shouting in their native languages. I heard someone shouting in telugu - 'Ayyo.. Padipothundhi flight. awww... ', which means 'Oops.. the flight lost it balance and is falling down.. awww...'. Then the balance was maintained and before even people could come out of the shock, there was another free fall within a few secconds.. This time, I also shouted. My heart was almost in my hand. I dont even know what was the pulse rate. It was beating very rapidly. I just dint know what to do? I am going to die miserably with a free fall from atleast a thousand metres. How do I react? I was looking for someone from the cabin crew. None of them were around. Was wondering if I should pull out my life jacket from under the seat and jump out of the emergency door. My mind was blank. All I could utter was - 'Om Namo Narayanaya'. The flight had so many people - it had kids, young people like me and old people. If I got so scared, I dont have to tell you about the rest of the categories.

With all this havoc, the pilot continued the flight without even bothering to announce whether we will all land in single pieces on this mother Earth, still in a position to breathe its air... or if we are in danger. He dint give a damn about all the chaos and fear of the crowd. If you are flying 5 mins behind the schedule, that makes an announcement. If you are taking off 2 mins late due to a lot of aircrafts waiting for take off before you, that becomes another announcement. If there is turbulence in the atm, there will be yet another disturbance when you are watching a movie due to their announcement. When such things which really wont make a difference or which wont mean much are being announced, its really strange that people are left to die with fear and no one made a mention of such a situation.. If this is the case with Singapore airlines, dont even ask me about the rest of the airlines.

Now, I still dont know whether he was practising for some aircraft games on the sky with all of us in it, or whether it was really unavoidable and he had to take a free fall twice due to whatever conditions. The landing was too bad. It was so rash. But we were all glad that we had indeed landed with all parts intact. With the increasing number of planes and the airlines, is the quality proportionately decreasing? With the flight accidents and misfortunes going up rapidly, are enough measures being taken to prevent them or are the lessons just limited as grass for the media to feed on and people to talk about for a few days???

Red bus: Epitome of pathetic customer service!

With deep regrets I write this blog today.. for the simple fact that Red bus was a start up by BITSians. As a BITSian, its quite natural to be a bit partial to your own college.. I had a very bad customer service from them, this not being the first one, but the one that made me reach the yield point/breaking point. Below is the mail that I had sent to their customer service.. I honestly dont know if this means anything to them.. or if they even care about this. But, I want it give it my best shot to let them know that they were bad and they do need improvement. If they already knew it and decided not to bother about it, well, God save them.. because they will be left with no more customers on one fine day. Its high time they realize the fact - ' If you dont take care of the customers, someone else will'

To whoever it may concern,

I know that red bus has been started by BITSians. As a BITSian, I expect atleast some standards to be maintained. The customer service is worst than poor.

I last called the redbus in Bangalore to get 3 tickets booked(1 for forward journey and 2 for return). Inspite of repeatedly confirming the return date, I received a message on my mobile mentioning the confirmation of the ticket for a wrong date. I had to call back again and wait endlessly for someone to answer my call for something which is the fault of the red bus service person, who ever booked the ticket. Its a shear time waste to me. Instead of going into the website of the private bus company, say kesinesi directly and booking the ticket, the only reason why I go through red bus is to save some time in entering all the details over their website. However, my purpose is not solved and my time was even wasted.

After booking the ticket, I told very specifically that I need the ticket delived on the same day, because I was flying to Indonesia the next day, which is a sunday and is holiday for red bus. I had booked my tickets on a saturday morning and given a whole lead time of 1 day. I dint get the tickets delivered. I was promised that the soft copy of the tickets will be delivered after the hard copy is handed over. I organized one of my friends to pay the money and collect the tickets. I dint receive any soft copy of the tickets. My friend again called up and requested them to send across my tickets to my email ID. They still dint! I dont understand what kind of a customer service this is? If you cannot deliver, please admit in advance so that I will look for alternatives.

I really don’t know if this email means anything to you guys.. But I just want to let u know that u lost your good will… Definitely, I will never book with red bus again after all this inconvenience caused not only to me, but my friend at India who has been following up for me and wasting his time. I will communicate this experience with all my friends in the corporate world and make sure that they dont face similar experience by choosing red bus.. and waste their valuable time..

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.!

Taiwan

Yes, i happened to travel out of India for the first time ever! It was a 4 day trip to start with. Singapore airlines, my 1st international flight. For the kind of rigorous planning that I normally do even for the smallest of the things, I should ideally have planned very well for this most awaited onsite. However, I was in a different world.. Absolutely no planning, what so ever! It dint even strike my head that i need to google for a few Indian restaurants atleast.. May be the fact that its just a matter of 4 days made me relluctant. Apparently, I dint find a single Indian there other than my manager. I had no one to even bother about my where abouts. To my great luck, to get a SIM card in Taiwan, they not only require your passport, but also your PAN card!(An Indian PAN card!!!!, which i conveniently left back in India). Strange and bitter experience it was to be at a land far far away from my people, without any means of communication with them either!

When i landed in India after the 4 day stay at Taiwan, I felt so relieved. I dont want to sound dramatic, but the truth is that i was longing to take a look at the cooked rice!! I dint even get to see rice for 4 long days! Well, having got such a great experience, i was all set for my next trip to Taiwan again, for 10 days! There were heaps of Indians this time, who came in for the project from Bangalore office, just like me. They all reached well before me, found out the places to hang around, eat, walk along, shop.. etc. All i had to do was just join them :D It was great fun! What was the difference between the last trip and this one? Its still the same place, the same hotel, the same office, the same work!! But, this time I had friends to go around with, to share the feelings across, to talk out to.. and ofcourse, i had a mobile and a Taiwan SIM Card this time :)

A break @ Mangalore!!

In the tough schedule where i am hardly finding time to cook leisurely and eat, I decided to take a break..! I decided, "Come what may, I am going to Mangalore for 3 days", Quickly, i had set things in place to ensure no significant damange @ office during my trip. I also made sure to stuff my bag with loads of things that there was no place for the office laptop..

Planning is very important for any activity. But, not all things happen as planned. We should also learn how to mitigate the deviations in planning. Out of the 7 tickets booked, 3 people backed out one after the other for reasons which i still feel could have been handled without skipping the trip too.. But anyways, they chose to evade the mitigation plan altogether. But i was so particular that we should not dampen our spirits looking at such drop outs. And yes, admist all the uncertainty, four of us finally set off to Mangalore on a thursday night..(If you really want something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it!!)

That was my first journey in a sleeper bus. I was so excited about the journey and it was indeed a great experience. The moment i stepped out of the bus in Mangalore, I cross checked the bus to read the name plate - "Bangalore-Mangalore". I wondered if i were in Ooty.. The place is so green.. the climate so pleasant..and the timing so apt!! I definitely did not go there to note the statistics, but i couldn't help noticing the fact that every house had a well and a coconut tree as mandates..

We had gone to Kuki and Dharmasthala. I had seen the biggest ever line of my lifetime there at Dharmasthala. We went half mad looking at such a long line.. We thought we will atleast figure out where the line ends.. and by the time we figured it out, we realized that we were just 10 steps away from "gomateswar"!! We went there took a few pics and started back on our return journey..

I must say that the best thing about Mangalore is the sight of the beach!! Apparently, the clouds have disappointed all of us from watching a beautiful sunset. But, the pleasure that i got that evening in sitting on a small stone at the beach with waves of water at regular intervals touching my feet in itself is something that i cannot put in words.

Maggy had taken us through Mangalore at a glimpse in this car, trying to cover as many places as possible in the available short time..The moment, we went to his house, we were all busy in showcasing our photography abilities..It was very well maintained, i must say! No wonder, it won the best small garden award for 3 consecutive years in Mangalore.

All the three days that i spent there, i did not think about anything else.. no office... no work.. it was a great break.. just like all the good things come to an end, the time flew so fast that i was back in Bangalore again!! Thanks Sush for the wonderful hosting!! Hemanth, KP and Rajesh, am sure u are already repenting for not making it to such a great trip... Better luck next time..