I was 'Soccered'!

Its really a treat to watch the enthu on every face that has gone scarlet from cheering for their favourite team and hands that have clapped for every pass of the ball.And needless to say, I have learnt to do it too...and am just living it up in Germany.

For lack of much associaltion with anything that was football-ish, all i knew about it before the world cup was probably the famous player 'Pele'.
All thanks to the noise after each match and a series of Gyaan pilletes from my colleagues here on visit with me, I was interested!

Though not with extreme enthu, I had to succumb to the pressure of some colleagues, extremely passionate about soccer and i HAD to walk up to the Local Market place of this small town Walldorf in germany (Walldorf is currently where we are staying)

It was totally sunny at 5:15 in the evening, almost like the afternoon in India. I was not so aware that it would stay like this for the next 4 hours!

Ya, so we reach as the match was 15 mins up...the two teams playing were Argentina and Deutschland! Wow what a combination! I could make out the importance of this game only after looking at some tense faces..actually a good 1000 of them standing along with me, watching a big green screen under the scorching sun. and all of them roaring their throats away at every pass...Screams, Bands, drums, whistles, beer, flags and what not! And believe me, that was a match of its kind...1-1 till the end of the second extra time is tough! And Finally Germany makes it to the Semis after beating one of the world's best teams....phewww!

The whole crowd burst into puffs of excitement with each goal of the penalty shoot-out.I wish I was watching this in a stadium...the roar would have been deafening!
And then it was celebration time for the Germans....Flags, horns, beer, music all over!
It was an evening to remember! Iam sure this was one of the few things, I would feel lucky I was a part of.

Those sweet gestures that words cannot replace!

This is just a small incident that hapenned at work today..One of our colleagues got late for our regular lunch at the cafeteria. He was stuck explaining a complex issue to somebody. We all were very hungry and as it was almost nearing the closing time, we rushed without him .While we took our lunch and started about calming our roaring stomachs..one gal amongst us gets this idea to take lunch for this guy who might probably not arrive untill the counter closed! The expression on his face when he saw that we had taken it for him was so nice to see. He actually looked quite hungry. He ate real quick and i felt so good watching him eat. I was filled with warmth!

Sometimes I smile at strangers...may be we were just crossing a road together and thats reason enough for me to shell out a smile ..and it just gets better when the other person also smiles at the same time.
I think such small things can really make your day sometimes...Your favourite song on the radio suddenly on a dull morning can pep you up almost instantly...or may be just a phone call from a long forgottten friend wishing you a good birthday that was six months ago...may be you go home to find your clothes that you were refusing to touch for long time, all neatly done by your roomie when she was doing hers!

Such things thrill me so much..I feel elated!
Really, the world is still good enough to live in as long as you have such sweet and tiny instances that can make u feel good!

Hogenakkal Falls

Ok, here comes a blog about another trip ....A day in the lap of gushing water - Hogenakkal.

Let me first tell you about my mates in this journey - we were a bunch of 7 - just the right count to fit in a qualis.
Ms. Sunkara was the organiser and Rez fella was always there whenever it was time for appreciation for all the moral support he shelled out to her ;-)
Remo, the rockstar firang was there to flaunt her complexion at home ground, the HOT TamilNadu :-)
Swats, Remo's roomie, not so well known to me before the trip...we just used to give each other those 'Hello (I think I know you)' kinda smile....now its got better.
ya, so Swats and Swets are the two 'ill-treated roomies' (??!!) and share an almost common name which confused our Neo-Amit!
Amit loves to flaunt his hair...well lots of it there!
Rez and Rasleen, the sweet couple were given the back seat, which probably was more comfortable ;-)

Ya, so on friday, we had some of these mails floating about what to get and all that and just a bit of discussion on the previous days of which i wasnt an active member...aah, i was just being busy and they just TOLD me I was going with them!
No problem, its sometimes good to be on the side that has the FUN and not DO anything for it ...hmm...but hey, am also doing the post production stuff here :D

Saturday, On the road at 6:45 - We got ready very early in the morning, surprisingly before the driver came and that chap was real late...grrr! Anyway, we picked up ppl in no time and we were On Hosur Road....had a look at Infy's savvy buildings from the Hosur road and it didnt take us much to reach TN border...we paid the road tax of about Rs.350 and continued with our bakar. It was good that we sent Amit to pay the tax instead of sending the driver who asked us 650 for the same....its good to be alert also when you have fun!

The roads on this stretch are really worth a mention...Rez was plain fascinated and i guess he has now cut down on teasing Remo, the Chennai gal....For most of us, TN is just chennai and Chennai is just about its bad weather (Summer, Summer and more summer ;-)). All other good stuff, we just choose to ignore, aah, only for the heck of it! Remo is a nice catch to get anyway :-p

And we had breakfast at one of these nice looking A1 plazas...there are several on the road..but the food sucks! Its a nice-picture-taking-place though!
It was about 11 am and we were so close to Hogenannakal....the boards said about banning plastics and all that...but we found quite a lot of it inside...even in the water :-(

OK, now at hogenakkal, all set with the funky caps and Cameras. It took us Rema's knowledge of Tamil to get the boat wallahs go a bit low on the price for the ride.
We got 2 boats 600 each, a lil too much, probably her firang looks offset the Tamil advantage!

A ride in the round boat for 5 min took us to a place where the waterfall starts....Now you feeel 'AWESOME'! After all the heat on the way, its really a rewarding scene...and all of us spent about 20 min staring at the scene, picture time included! Now we were to go closer to the fall....in the boat(Coracle)...hmmmm! Delight for non-swimming experts like me, hehe. For sometime we went against current to reach the foot of the fall...I realised these boat-guys have tremendous energy..it takes a lot to row it and do this against current of such powerful gushing water. It was so realxing to just sit in the boat and watch all water around you. Yes, Now we were all drenched...totally...we took turns to go under water in the boat and it was one dip to remember!


Afternoon consisted of janta Swimming and one puking, i wont mention who...:-p
and the gals enjoying the 3/4 dip in the island...yeah a small strecth of the land in the water allows you to get down for a while and have a nice play IN the water.
And now was time for lunch! All thanks to Rasleen's mom, we had amazing curries to eat our bread with...I discovered my Mc.J burger here! And this happened on top of a small hill that we trekked up! Finally we managed to get tired a lil bit after all the relaxing in water. Lunch was really one of the most amazing part of the trip.. eating while fighting some monkeys..aah dont worry, we gave them some to eat also :-)

And according to the boat-wallah,it was time for some massages for who wished to have them, but we decided to spend time with more water instead and found a convenient 'picturesque' rock and did the rest of the photo shoot there...Rez and Rasleen enjoyed splashing water on each other...we enjoyed watchin them ;-)
Swati was being careful all the while with the black veil to cover her 'dear' hair...Swetha, amit, rema and I just let go and had some fun in the water.

Most part of our return journey consisted of people doing there own thing...Rez talking as usual and in the process keeping swathi and rasleen bugged and busy...Remo Swetha and I humming along with the CD in the car...Amit, just plain watching something out of the window :-) We finished this with a fulfilling dinner at Lazeez (Kmgla) ...no great ambience but the food tastes good, all the more after you are so tired!

And like always, theres always a twist(!!) in my happy endings, this time, I twisted (sprained) my leg! :-D
2 days of flaunting the sprain band was all that was there to it and I was alright!!

I hate myself for this

I always seem to think that I am the person that anybody can easily play with…as in make me do what they think suits their own personal agenda. For most instances, I would like to assume that I am being friendly or non-frill. I mean its OK anyway sometimes.

But there are times that I really regret having given a person the kind of liberty or power in some cases to affect my course of action. I don’t know what makes me do it.
I guess its one of those sheep in the herd kind of attitude that comes of you that you don’t care to think on your own. Sometimes it is also the pressure that the situation puts on you and becomes better of your ego, and then I simply nod in agreement to whatever happens! When you know what is hapenning is not the best thing that could have hapenned....Can you really keep quiet?

Lets say this instance with reservations! No, its much more than an instance. Its a huge movement in the nation now. I have been getting a lot of mails these days to do something, join some peaceful march, sign a petition and many things of that kind....but what i have done is to delete some of those forwards.....oh yeah barring some which i found were well written. Some of these mails actually had content that was capable of generating some kind of motivation in some poor unacting souls who revel in my company. So I hit a forward button very conveniently thinking that I have done my bit. Iam almost sure that we would not actually go to these protests, oh Iam scared of the blore police, some of whose men can aim and shoot at the most unappropriate moments! and those Lathis....Hey hang on! i have signed some of those petitions....yes, very much in the comfort of my seat....with a nice song playing on the headphone stuck on me. Its ok anyways that I have done my Btech and there are less chances that i fall a victim of this reservation shit..But i forget that there is more to this than the immediate that i can think of....

I have a brother in class 10 now...and i think he is quite good at studies and all....I keep setting these ambitious targets for him(sometimes bossing over)...coz i think its a good thing to be a source of motivation to your kid brother, especially after you were the star of your own school. Iam not lying when I say I have had an excellent record in studies and allied things. So I am sort of looked upon in the family as one of those good girls who has done her bit to make her parents proud. And these poor kids in the family( the larger one) are put under contstant pressure to perform and keep the pride of the family.
I think that at this point I can do much more than a forward to save my own brother from falling prey to such senseless shit with reservations. Why the hell does anybody need a reservation? Is it not enough to have earned the image of a corrupted nation, full of those people who are no better than parasites? Every other day, we are discussing a major murder case/ racket/ scams on TV and doing those SMS polls for incidents that happened years ago...what a pity on our judicial system? Is it not enough to make the world think that we are those kinda people who are always finding excuses to avoid doing work (of any kind or degree) and pass it on to some poor fellow who does not have a clue of what will hit him next? We already have so many bad things about us..is there a need for more?

Think of what will happen to the best institutions we have that churn out thousands of engineers, doctors, architects, designers, scientists, agriculturists, artists and many more such able people. Having reservations will hit our educational standards so badly that i can already see the smart ones leave the country for a better future overseas and find home there. All we will have are the Call centers in the name of foreign investments and dollar earnings....all thanks to the Britishers for the gift of their language in return to the pride that we dearly held once.

God! Please save us from this.....hmm.....i think i can do more than typing a prayer here!

The Catcher in the Rye - My Review

Well the name of the author of this strange novel is JD Salinger. Incidentally it doesnt hit most of us at first shot what the title means....but I shall leave it to the reader to find out!

Well, I read the book mostly for a singular reason that my room mate had it and I was more than free to read it...But i didnt know a few things about this book until i started reading it....This book was banned in America after its first publication..
Reason ? There it is ...i paste this from a blog....
John Lennon's assassin, Mark Chapman, asked the former Beatle to sign a copy of the book earlier in the morning of the day that he murdered Lennon. Police found the book in his possession upon apprehending the psychologically disturbed Chapman.
However, the book itself contains nothing that could be attributed with leading Chapman to act as he did - it could have been any book that he was reading the day he decided to kill John Lennon - and as a result of the fact that it was The Catcher in the Rye, a book describing a nervous breakdown, media speculated widely about the possible connection.......

Well thats a surprising intro to a book that is actually quite sweeet at some points, well but not entirely so....
Its about a guy who is chucked out of one more school again for his inability to apply himself at school....The whole novel is about a vacation that he decides to take after the expulsion and before he finally goes home to face his parents....he explains some really tiny human elements that sort of appear very similar to the way we feel about certain things but we have never had time or the vision to analyse them or even recognise these elements within us.....

I must mention that is a sort of a depressing book in some parts when we actually think of oursleves fitting so well in the category of the Phonies of the world....but then it is quite thought provoking.....a well written novel, applauded mostly for the fascinating and enlightening description of our human condition

I dont know if I must finally recommend this book to anybody...but yes, if you have a liking for understanding human behaviour, you should try this....
If you are looking for Time pass and a non engaging, cool reading, sheldons are always there.....

Trekking - My First Experience

This being my first trek, i was really not sure if i would make it but my stamina really gave me a pleasant surprise. One thing I realized during this trek is that there are no limits to what you can do with will power, at least the limits that I set for me were so so incorrect!

Ok, we started on friday night and took 8 hrs to reach the forest office in Srimangala for the required permissions to trek inside the Brahmagiri Wildlife sanctuary. You also get a guide at this point. Once we all got freshened up, it was time to start. We went straight ahead to Irupu falls - also called the Lakshmana Theertha River, 1km Up.

These falls has a story behind them. It is said that holy water was created by Lakshmana with his mighty arrow to quench Rama's thirst on their way back from Lanka after rescuing Sita. After a really gooddip in the Chilled water at the irupu, we had to start for our nextdestination - narimale base camp. It was like noon and the camp was4.5km from Irupu - Uphill. The first Kilometer was real pain - more sobecause of our sedentary lifestyle.Then it started becoming a little flat when we could manage to walk without complaining :-) I must mention here that we had a lot of luugage to carry uphill - sleepingbags, food for 2 days, water, ropes, clothes and a lot of otherstuff....which made our bags real heavy.

We reached the Narimale base camp at around 3:30 - very tired after asteep 1.5 km stretch towards the end. By this time, everyone was almost dying with hunger and thirst. We quickly finished our packed lunch and some people had the good luck of a nap in the very few beds available. I finished my afternoon merely by staring at the surroundings and tryng to get used to them.

Just relaxed for a while and started for another destination - narimale Peak, thankfully, this time without the bags. It was about 3.5 km from the base camp, Uphill.A part of this was really really steep....At one point I almost gaveup...I told all my friends to proceed to the top and pick me on their return. But somehow I thought I will not come to this place again and strengthened my will to do it....with a bit of help on the steepest parts, i made it to the top! It was awesome up there.....I really cant believe I made it when I look at the snaps of the peak that were takenfrom the botttom......We were almost in the clouds.....Heaven!!

After a very rewarding sight of the sunset from the Hill top, we trekked down and soon it was very dark.....and now we had to cook dinner....we had taken some instant food and quickly made it....and then you can all imagine the kind of masti 20 ppl around a fireplace can do.....we had a nice cheasy round of introduction and games with alot of teasing going on..... ....well wondering why the introduction....hehe, actually we were all a mixed group from variuos companies....ppl got their friends together and stuff....i did notknow 75% of the crowd before going.....but it was really nice knowing so many people and they were all very sweeet, i was so surprised at how co-operative everyone was....We slept on the very thin sleeping bags, some ppl also on the floor...the rats had great time eating our food and i dont know watelse.....:-D

Ok, now day2 - we started early in the morning.....hey actually, i forgot mentioning that we had finished up all the water we had on the first day....so we were really stuck...We had to manage with some dirty (stagnant) water at dinner....huh! Though it was boiled, it had this brownish colour, so i slept without touching it! :-(

Ya, so we started early in the morning to Muneccal caves, they are inKerala....Ok this place called brahmagiri is actually in the karnataka- kerala Border..... the funny thing is that one of the guys had the signal on the moutain (Airtel , super!) and was worried if it would be roaming if he made any call ..hahaahahha.....The caves were 3.5 km or even more from our base camp....this time most part of it was flat, thankfully....we spotted some deers on ourway....and guess wat, we found a fresh water stream..it was flowing and the water was awesome.....chilled and tasted gr8!! it was a like a gift from heaven......we got back to the base camp by 11am and started the trek downwards after a short round of photosessions .....this time it was easy....yeah, but quite risky in the slopy parts.....i actually fell down twice but both times moved no further coz of all the weight....all that was there in the fall was a loud sound "THUD"and then I coolly dust it off and started walking :D
After a cool and refresing dip at the Irupu, we got back to our vehicle and started for Bangalore....Well the drama and the adventure did not end here.....our vehicle stopped moving at mandya, on the mysore highway.....some diesel leakage was the answer to my curiuosity and irritation.....then we, in very filmy style, stopped a bus on the highway and got toBangalore.....i finally reached home at 2am on monday with 2 blisters on my feet, almost broken legs, lots of unused tissue papers, mud allover my clothes and shoes....and wonderful time to cherish!