Temples, Temples and Temples

In the last two months I went to few temples, some of which I had visited for the first time. A blog on this..

Denkanikottai:Denkanikottai is a small town close to Bangalore (around 60 km) and Hosur (30 km). I came to know from Anand that there were some temples with historical (and mythological !!) significance in and around this town. So off we went in 5 bikes from Bangalore.
"Kamba" Ganesha temple in Anekal was our first halt. This temple had a Mallikarjuna (Shiva) sannidhi which was a miniature of the one in SriSailam. It was told that the temple was resurrected by Sri Sri Abhinava Vidhya Theertha of Sringeri and Poojas were started regularly. Lord Ganesha appears in a pole or "kamba" and hence the name.
Narasimha swamy temple - This was in Denkanikottai. The significance of this temple was that the Narasimha sculpture here was carved by Arjuna (of the Pandavas) and the rock above the sculpture was moved by Bhima. The sculpture was inside a cave and there were carvings of all Gandharvas and other Devas and also that of dinosaurs!! The temple also has the outline of Lord Vishnu's feet ("Vishnu Padham") on the top of the rock. It is believed that Lord Vishnu killed a rakshasha standing on this rock. This is definitely a place to visit.
Pettaraya Swamy temple - This temple was close to the Narasimha Swamy temple. Pettaraya swamy (aka Vettaiyaadiya perumal - The lord who hunted) is believed to have killed a rakshasha using a mace ("gadha") called "Denkani" and hence the name for the town. The perumal looked really beautiful. Another speciality of this temple was that it had a separate sannidhi for Athri rishi (I belong to Athreya gothra and hence I have worshipped the root of my family tree :)).
Madurai:Two weeks back, I went to Madurai and nearby temples with my parents.

Azhagar koil - About 17 km from Madurai, Azhagagar koil can be reached with a detour from Melur when going from Trichy. Sundararaja perumal or Kallazhagar or simply Azhagar was looking true to His name. Simply beautiful and majestic. He is the brother of Goddess Meenakshi who was ruling Madurai. This was one of the Divya Desams and a must visit temple.
Pazhamudhir cholai - The 6th adobe (of the 6) of Lord Muruga is in a hill just adjacent to Azhagar koil. We were lucky to have visited the temple right at the time of the morning puja. Small but beautiful temple with a scenic backdrop. The hill was cool and there was a distinct temperature difference between the hill and the foothills. Also, a lot of monkeys en route and
people should be careful if they have things that would attract monkeys (hope you understand :)).
Thiruparankundram - Another adobe of Lord Muruga is the place where He resides in a "Kalyana kolam" - the place where His wedding with "Deivana" took place. He resides in a sitting posture flanked by Shiva (father), Durga (mother), Vishnu (uncle), Ganapathi (brother), Naradha (rishi), Surya (The Sun) and Chandra (moon) - a real marriage atmosphere :).
With this I had visited 4 out of the 6 adobes of Lord Muruga. Thiruthani and Thiruchendur are the two left. Planning to visit those soon (with His help of course :)) For those who do not know Palani and Swamimalai are the other two.
Meenakshi Amman temple - No explanation required. Meenakshi and Sundareswara swamy were as Majestic as ever. I was born in Madurai and I always have an affinity to Goddess Meenakshi :).
Viralimalai - While going back to Trichy we also got to visit Viralimalai - another Lord Muruga temple around 30 km from Trichy. Roughly 200 steps, the temple had 11 sannidhis, the main deity being Lord Shanmuganatha (Muruga with 6 faces). Lots of peacocks and monkeys

too !!

Planning to visit more temples and will be back with those blogs soon.
Cheers !!

Dasavatharam - The movie to watch !!

"Awesome!!", "What a movie!!", "Vow" - This is what the audience of Dasavatharam say after they come out. So did I and hence this blog. For people who do not know - Dasavatharam , is a Tamil movie, conceived and written by KamalHasan, in addition to donning 10 roles in the movie.
The movie is not as touching as say TZP, not as inspiring as say Chak De, not radical as Anbe Sivam/Hey Ram ... This can utmost be categorized as a HiFi - Techie masala entertainer, which shines due to the sheer brilliance of Kamal Hasan and to an extent director KS Ravikumar. The screenplay was so fast till the interval that we din't even realize that 100 minutes passed. Post interval, also was awesome but for the fag end, which could have been better. It will be grossly unfair, if one complains for those last few minutes on an otherwise good movie. So here is my ranking and thoughts on the 9 roles (Not including the main hero - Govind Ramasamy - Not that it was not good but that these are after all cake walks for Kamal Hasan !!).

1. Christian Fletcher - The American Ex CIA, also the ruthless villain in this movie. This is the best to me. He enters the movie just after the first 10 minutes and stays (rocks rather) till the end. The highlights being the scene he kills Mallika Sherawat, when he hits a biker on the road and of course the climax when he dies.
2. Balram Naidu - The RAW officer from AP. He just carries the first half on his shoulders and helps in the humour department with his Telugu - Tamil dialect. His expressions and mannerisms are just great.
3. Grandma Krishnaveni - A typical Agraharam old widow patti. The humour (s)he brings in during the movie and the mourning scene in the climax are the highlights.
4. Vincent Poovaraghan - The South TamilNadu-Kerala guy. He secures this place for his dialect of Tamil and the mannerisms again. It took me sometime to realize that he was KamalHasan.
5. Rangaraja Nambi - The 12th century Veera Vaishnavaite who lives and dies in the first 10 minutes. I couldn't really place the significance of this historical event in the entire movie's context, Kamal rocks even in this. This will remind people of HeyRam a bit. Also, the Kulothunga Chozhan episode and Nambi becoming a Vaishnavaite martyr are a bit hard to believe. However, the initial disclaimer said that the movie is a mixture of history and fiction. So no complaints and no controversies :)
6. Japanese - I don't remember the name though. This guy adds the revenge/sister sentiment aspect to the movie. He scores for his prowess in martial arts and the way he lived as a typical Japanese guy well within himself.
7. George Bush - The make up was wonderful. Really looked like Bush in some places. Surprisingly, he was used as a humour element in the movie. This needn't have been Kamal but neways a good one.
8. Khaleefullah - The 7 ft tall Tamil muslim role. I rate him at 8 because he doesn't play any major part in the script. Also, this again could have been any one else. Not to undermine the innocent humour he brought in during the middle stages of the movie.
9. Avatar Singh - Again no real role. But nice to see Jayapradha and Kamal Hasan together (in yet another blood cancer related storyline :) ).

In spite of the Hifi concepts like bio weapons, chaos theory/butterfly effect, historical events etc. there is no dearth for good (not crass at all)humour (thanks to roles 2,3,4,7,8 and of course Govind) in the script (Kamal Hasan's script reminded of Crazy Mohan's in many places - Hats off !!).
I now realize this blog is pretty long and also became a movie review- sorry about that. Just for completion sake - "So I go with 4 out of 5 and 2 thumbs up for Dasavatharam" ;)
Cheers!!

IPL - Really Premier indeed!!

A blog about something that's the buzzword now. IPL - Indian Premier League.

Adapted in the lines of the EPL (the football league), both in terms of format and the big money involved, the IPL has definitely given a break to domestic cricket in India. Though the English counties have traditionally had foreign players, the T20 format of the IPL makes it refreshing (don't forget the "cheer leaders") ;).

It is indeed great to see players from different countries playing together. I somehow liked this Afro-Asian cup. At least there, the teams were divided on the basis of continents and the players belonging to a team essentially belonged to the same continent. But in case of IPL, except for the icon players, the team selection doesn't have any rationale. It's really exciting to see Dhoni captaining Chennai, Ishant playing for Kolkata, Vaas bowling to Jayasuriya, Warne belting Symonds for 2 sixes in an over ..... This should instill a lot of team spirit in players. For instance, Deccan with a bunch of very talented individuals don't look like a good team and Rajasthan on the other hand are working wonders with a set of spirited youngsters (I know it's too early in the competition to comment!!). As Dhoni rightly pointed out, "the team that gels well will win".

Also, it is exciting to watch the Indian audience cheer for Hayden's fifty while celebrating Ganguly's dismissal, pray that Afridi performs while Sehwag flunks. Even in the wildest of my dreams, I couldn't imagine this happening, but here I was, hailing Oram, Hayden, Muarlidharan and Hussey M :). There are other interesting battles like the ones between, Hussey brothers, Pathan brothers, McGrath Vs Warne etc.

But it's embarrassing to see that the Aussies are out performing others even here. The match winners and the trump cards in all teams are Aussies, three out of the four centuriions so far are Aussies. I am actually waiting for May, when all contemporary Aussie palyers wil get back. Then, there will still be retired (from international) players like Warne, McGrath and Gilly left. I am sure they will have a say in the outcomes of their respective games.

What's best about this entire thing is the amount of exposure that the local lads are getting and the boost for the Indian domestic arena. But care should be taken that India doesn't end up being T20 masters and Test/ODI minnows. That will be really bad for Indian cricket. Well, Imran Khan once said that there are 3 Ts that make a complete batsman - Technique, Temperament and Talent - while the tests test all the 3 Ts, the T20 tests only "Talent" and hence a 33 % batsman can shine in T20s :). But it is definitely a litmus test for the bowlers and some real good bowlers may come out of this exercise.

Before signing off, let me list my favourites in that order - Super Kings, Royal Challengers, Deccan Chargers, Daredevils, Indians, Royals. The South zone bias is there to see (I think it's natural ;) ) and the two missing teams are not there because of their owners :).

As far as the team composition goes I feel DC, DD, CSK and KKR have a fair chance. Yet, cricket is a funny game!!
Wishing the IPL all the very best. I will blog more, when more interesting controversies prop up :)
Cheers!!!!

Am I an extended SI Statesman?

I repeated my SI statesman thing again and would you believe it, it's the same set of places again in South India. It happened sometime back but was able to write it only now as I was busy, if I may say so :)

Palakkad (Kerala) on Feb 23/24 for my cousin's wedding. The groom's name happened to be Prakash. I wish them a very happy married life :).

March 1-2, was Tirupathi and Sri kalahasthi (AP). 7 of us, and we climbed up and down as ususal. All my 4 venduthals are over. I think the next time I go, I need not mandatorily climb unless I have some things in between :). Luckily, we did not have any road adventures on the way to kalahasthi as we had last time. We even came back to Bangalore in a cab as we did not want to wait for the evening bus. It was fun though. Anand and Venkatesh are yet to send the expenses settlement which was done promptly last time :).

March 8, I was at Trichy (TN). It happened to be my birthday and Kannan's wedding. Wishing myself a happy birthday and Kannan a very happy married life again.

March 9, I was back in Bangalore (karnataka).

This time, the SI thing extended a bit to West India also and hence the title. I made an official trip to Pune. I kinda liked the city. Lots of open spaces and not as fast as Bangalore. On top of all this, we had a suite accomodation there and that was also great. What was most interesting was the airport. It was a cute airport maintained by the air force. The passengers need not go too far in bus etc. to reach the aircrafts. A simple 1 min walk is enough as good as a railway station. The next time I go, hope I have some time to explore the place.

The next blog will be about the temple trip with my family in the third week of March. Signing off, hoping that I can blog that soon.

Cheers.

Happy New Year!!

Am a bit late in wishing. Neways, Happy New Year to all of you and to my blog(if no one else is there reading :))

My blogs, of late, have become like Quarterly reports, capturing my three/four months of activity. Hope at least this year I come out of this.

Between August 2007 and now, the only significant happening in my life is my Sabari Malai trip in the first week of December. On December 9, 2007 2100 Hrs, my 25 year long wait came to an end when I had the Darshan of Lord Aiyappan in Sabari mala. It was all the more enjoyable as we waited (climbed, rather) in the queue for 10 hours. The entire period of fast (around 40
days) was great, as I felt, it imbibed in me a bit (more :)) of of discipline. We even got to visit around 8 temples in Kerala. That was also enjoyable as it was more than 15 years since I visited these temples last. Over all, a memorable experience.

Ever since our return, I had very hectic days at office working towards demos and shows. Not long before did I think that it was quite sometime since I slogged like an a**. I am ruing that thought now :(. The last time I worked like this was a good 2.5 years back :). Never would I think like that anymore. Take it from me :). Hope the happy days will soon be back :)

I watched TZP (Taare Zameen Par). Awesome movie. Liked it really. Have to watch it again.

I want to write a blog about the recently concluded Sydney test between India and Australia. Saravanan has also written one. I want to write mine first and read his later as I don't want to get influenced by his thoughts.

Happy New Year once again.See you soon.

Am I a South Indian "States"man??

The dictionary definition for statesman goes like this "a person who is experienced in the art of government or versed in the administration of government affairs. ". But this blog has nothing to do with that.

Just that, I had spent the last 4 weekends in 4 (all) South Indian states :), starting with July 14 when I was in Karnataka (where I reside currently).

The next weekend was in Andhra when I visited Tirupathi and Kalahasthi. The previous two blogs were about that.

I followed it up with a vist to Trichy, Tamil Nadu. Regular native visit.

The next weekend was in Palakkad, Kerala. A visit which I was planning for 4 long years, but materialized only now :).
Incidentally, Aug 5 was saturn transit. Saturn has entered the zodiac sign of Simha (mine :)). Hoping to see and waiting for changes to happen.

Cheers!!

Tirupathi and Sri Kalahasthi visit II

This is the continuation of the previous blog...

The MiDnIgHt Conversation:

Well, after we had the nice dinner on saturday and returned to the guest house,we indeed tried to sleep. But the power nap that we had made it impossible for us to even get a wink :). So when I suggested that we go out and chat for "10 minnutes", I had an overwhelming response, with Anand and Venkatesh already outside!! Soon RP also joined us and there we were chatting about everything from black magic, politics, Indian culture, temples, don't know what all... When it was 00:45 on Jul 22, 2007 (Sunday), it was time for the AngaPradhakshinam guys to start. So, those four guys started and I & Anand tried to catch some sleep and eventually succeeded at 02:00. It was raining heavily outside!!!!

The descent:

We woke up at 05:15 to get ready for the descent. Three of us (I, Anand and Venkatesh) were to get down by walk (thru steps) while the other 3 were to take a jeep with our luggages (old people :)). We started climbing down at 06:15. Initialy, we were pretty slow as we were bare footed and we also felt the strain of yesterday's walk. We ate pori, manga etc and even had our breakfast just before Gali Gopuram. We chose a particular shop because the TV there was playing the Telugu version of "Pokiri" but as luck would have it, a kid who was operating the DVD player rewinded and played the opening scene some 4 times and that was what we got to watch :(. But this stretch was total fun and we literally enjoyed every step that we climbed down :). Our legs were not in our control, shaking, moving fast and aching and we were laughing through out. We will end up taking four steps when we actually intended to take only one! I repeat, it was GREAT FUN and the most memorable part of the trip... The irony was, out of the 3550 steps, around 1200 steps covered 7 km stretch while teh remaining 2300 steps covered a meagre 2 km!! We eventually reached the footsteps at 09:30, whereas we actually thought we will be able to climb down in 1.5 hrs :)

Sri Kalahasthi:

In the meantime, the other three guys had reached down and preponed our return to Bangalore by the 15:45 bus. So we had 6 hrs to cover Kalahasthi and Tiruchanoor. We booked a taxi to cover the two places. Tirupathi and Kalahasthi were 40 km apart. We reached Kalahasthi in less than an hour. When we tried to get a Rs. 30 Darshan ticket and go inside, some ____ there said that he can help us get a special darshan at Rs. 500 for 6 people. We din't have an idea of the crowd and hence took up that option to know that it was no different from the actual ticket. We had paid him Rs. 200 and would have been better off had we chose the initial 30 Rs. ticket :(. Still, we had a good darshan at both the Sannadhis (with Abhishekam at the Ambal sannadhi
:)).

Tiruchanoor:

After Kalahsthi, we reached Tiruchanoor at around 13:30 and finished our darshan, thus completing whatever we had set out to complete :))). Not much rush in Tiruchanoor and we had a great Darshan, needless to say She was looking awesome!!

The Stunt:

If you think that our trip to Kalahasthi has nothing else to mention about, then you are surely mistaken. The taxi driver almost finished us off, when he tried to overtake a lorry without seeing a jeep coming on the other side. Luckily he avoided a head on collision by turning and braking at the right moment. Our Sumo made a creaking sound and turned almost 180 degrees on the road and stooped with it's back towards a bush. Fortunately, there were no vehicles coming from behind. Surprisingly, none of us shouted during this, perhaps everyone had thought that the inevitable is gonna happen, just as I did :). Well, we were having our conversation about black magic, some one remarked that, the skull of the first child in the family helps in getting supernatural powers. After we escaped, some witch somewhere has missed three such skulls (Mine, RP's and Srini's ;D).

The comedy:

To add to this, the driver went missing at Kalahasthi when it was time to start after darshan. We looked out for him for half an hour and eventually found him by making an announcement in the Temple's speaker system!! Surely, Kalahastheeswarar had caused this delay and retained us for good :)

Well, something happened (which I won't write here for parliamentary reasons) with Srini in the bus stand. We boarded the bus on time after a nice lunch and reached Bangalore by 21:30. Took a taxi and reached home.

This again was a memorable experience. Hope this would bring all of us all the goodies that we wanted.

Om Namo Venkatesaya

Om Nama Shivaya

:)

Tirupathi and Sri Kalahasthi visit I

Hmmm... Din't blog for quite a while, as usual. Now, I have got something to write about. Some 6 of us (I, Anand & Ram Prasad, Sriram, Srini and Venkatesh) went to Tirupathi and SriKalahasthi. Here are our experiences and adventures :)

From Bangalore:
Our bus to Tirupathi was on Jul 20, 2007 (Friday), 22:30. I left office by the 18:15 shuttle. RP's house was our meeting point. I, Venkatesh and Sriram reached there by 21:00, Srini also reached there and we went to Majestic by auto(2). On the way, Srini made an attempt to talk in Telugu over phone, with the person who was arranging things for us in Tirupathi. That is when he used Tamilo-Telugu words like "Kilambisthaanu", which catalysed the other person to talk in Tamil, fearing further damage to his beloved mother tongue. I take this opportunity to request Srini not to talk in Telugu any more, at least with people who know Telugu. :). The bus departed at 23:00 from Majestic.

Bugs in Bus:
Keeping in pace with the Indian IT, even the buses have become Tech savvy. The volvo bus we travelled in had "bugs". Whether in software or any where, bugs sure suck. Not only was I a victim but also many other people who were occupying the window seat. I lost sleep and it was very heartening to see the bus reach Tirpuathi in just 4.5 hours. But I was happy with myself, when I woke Anand (sitting next to me) from deep sleep and asked him whether he was also experiencing bug bites :)

In Tirupathi:
Our first agenda was to get a room for 2 hrs for the 6 of us to get ready (answer calls from nature, take bath etc). An agent (if you can call him so) approached us and suggested some places. Firstly, we tried to avoid him. Sriram, in fact, took us along the road, saying, there are many hotels this side, but found only thorny bushes and hence we all turned back and took a place that the agent suggested. It was not bad, given the fact that we were going to use it for not more than 2 hrs. After getting ready, we took a big auto and reached Alipiri (the foothills from where one can start the ascent to Tirumala). We started ascending at 06:10.

The Ascent:
All 6 of us climbed by steps. It was a nice experience as expected. We were celebrating after covering each 1000th step and each km. Total 3550 steps and 9 km. Again, Srini surprised me with his speed of climibing. I could realize that I am growing older :). Eventually, we reached Tirumala around 10:30.

The Darshan:
The person who arranged everything for us, suggested that we go for darshan immediately owing to the rush. So we joined the Q at around 11:00. There we got split into 3 groups (RP & Venkatesh; I, Anand & Srini; Sriram)in the magnitude of the Q. The three groups came out at different times after darshan. It was an amazing sight always to see Him. A great experience. Special thanks to Srini for this.

The birth of "Rules" Ramanujam:
In the queue, two of the groups tried to be Romans in Rome. But Sriram dared to be different. He was much behind and hence came out after more than 30 min and asked Srini "Padichavan thaane nee?". This will go down as the statement of the trip and Sriram will always be remembered for this. There were some arguments there as all of us were hungry and tired. But these are part and parcel of any get together (especially trips), nothing will be memorable without happenings like these :)

The "sleep" and dinner:
We had a not so great lunch. Luckily, we got a guest house booked for us and had a GREAT sleep. During that time Srini got his tonsure done and became the "MOTTAI" Boss and four (except I and Anand) got their tickets for AngaPradhakshinam for the next day. We came back to the guest house after a nice dinner....

The remaining trip will be covered in the part II...

Om Namo Venkatesaya...

Bye!!

Where are we heading II

Am back !!

Don't want to touch upon why I din't blog for quite sometime. I really don't know whether I have anymore audience left :(

Still, let me write this just for the sake of it.

This is the Part II of the previous blog....

India as a country, especially Indian women, has come a long way from being very traditional and conservative. This was something that many social actvists of yesteryears were striving for. But I feel the whole thing has been overdone. I am definitely not taking a male chavunistic approach, nor am I trying to say that we should return to the older society. I just
want to throw some light on where we stand.

If I compare a male teenager of say 1990 with someone now, I would say the "growth" is linear but with the fairer sex "it" is exponential. As the culture of a society at large is defined by the female part of it, our "Boldness Quotience" on the whole has increased phenomenally. Men even now are men they were while the women have broken their shackles and come out and have
done so emphatically. The current Indian cinema is a show case of this phenomena. While the costumes of men have remained the same, those of women have "come down" drastically and is tending to nothing and the women are "ok" with this.

Not long ago, a woman smoking is a rare spectacle and such an incident will be watched with different reactions by on lookers or rather you can count the number of women who dare smoke outside (if at all). Drinking women? You must be joking. Live in relationships? Are you crazy? Gone are those days I feel.

Now what do we see? Women smoke as much as men do, if not more. Pubs and Discos are brimming with women. And a lot more which I dare not write here. For someone like me, who has got a slap from my mother once for rolling a piece of paper and faking as though I am smoking, these things fall as thunderbolts. Well I don't blame women alone of course. I'm writing about the Indian youth at large.

These changes are attributed to the "Western influence". Outsourcing gave us financial independence, luxurious lives, economic boom and what not, but all at the cost of what we have boasted of, all through our history - culture and tradition. At this rate, these two words will have to be preserved in a museum. There are still some people who are conservative (because of their values or fear!!) and are still not sure which way to take and confused over how to bring up their children.

Let's wait and watch what kind of India our future genrations will be seeing :-)

Where are we heading ...? - Part I

Well, Something serious and interesting :-)

I wanted to write about Indian culture after I read Arvind's blog on the same. But, I got the necessary motivation only now, after what happened in the train from Trichy to Bangalore few days back.

Here is what happened..
There were two guys and a girl in the train. From their conversation I learnt that they were colleagues(only) in an IT company and that the two guys had reserved tickets, while the girl had a wait listed ticket. Since the unreserved compartment will be crowded, they decided that the three will share the two berths, with the girl paying the reservation charges. This was fair enough. But the real shock(to me at least) came when every one settled down. Of the two guys, took an upper berth and other pair (of colleagues !!!!) went into a bed spread in the middle berth and what followed were giggles from inside!! The witness to this "BOLD"(Mallika Sherawat!!) act were myself(brought up in an orthodox family:-)), an elderly couple in their sixties and a middle aged couple with their 10 year old girl child, who was curiously looking at the middle berth with her mother constantly pressing her head down :-).

This will bring out varied reactions/responses from different people depending on their mental make up, notions on what is culture and above all the extent to which they are "bold". The old couple was stunned, the middle aged couple was speechless, I was confused (to be frank), the child was curious and the other friend of theirs was "normal". But none reacted and the train reached Bangalore on time and all of us were on our own ways.

There is nothing called as right or wrong. But, to me what they did was not ethical and an incident worth a post-mortem. I don't know whether their parents would have been "ok" with this, for that matter even if they would have been when they were in their school or college. What made them bold? Is it the fact that they are earning and are independent? Is it that they feel they are matured and grown up? Don't they bother about the society (people around)? Were they brought up that way? Will they bring up their children that way?

I have more questions and more thoughts which I would put down in the part II of this blog.

In the meantime, I'm really curious to know whether the guys happened to swap berths during the journey ;-) :-)

See you in Part II

Hmmmmmm.... That explains!!!

Hi All
Sorry for my looooooooong absense...

Let me outline the stuffs that happened after April....

In the first week of June, there was an event called People's week conducted for my group in my company. I was the People's Champion :-) responsible for conducting competitions (quite a long time since I actually did something like this :-() and managing our FootBall team(!!). We reached Semis u know :-))))) and lost there with a score line of 0-6. You win sometime and lose sometime, that's life after all.

Well, since I want to get my MBA, I decided to take the GMAT. Booked it on June 1 to take it on July 20. With inputs from Anuj I carried on my prep and eventually took the test on the D Day. In between, I had severe stomach aches, some 3/4 times one after the other. Well, scored a 700 in my GMAT. Happy !! But wouldn't have minded some 20~50 more. Incidentally I completed 3 years in my company on July 21, 2006. Great!!!

Again, my stomach aches were recurring :-(( My cousin's wedding took place in Udumalpet (Close to Coimbatore) on Aug 21, 2006. Went on a 5 day leave to Trichy. It was great fun, travelling in bus with the family and enjoyed the wedding. We planned a vist to a water fall called Thirumurthi which was close by. As luck would have it, after we climbed some 1.5 km close to the falls, people were coming back and told us that there was a flood. In fact, we saw it for ourselves. Full of mud and what all!! Came back dejected.... I haven't taken bath in a falls till now :-( But the heartening fact is that we made two trips to Palani :-)

Back to Trichy on Aug 23, went for scan (stomach ache) and learnt that I've 3 stones in my kidney!! Was referred to a Urologist who asked me to undergo a diagnostic process called IVP (Intra Veinous Polograph) to detect the exact location of the stone. That was done on Friday and eventually I go admitted to a hospital in Trichy. The surgery was on Monday (Aug 28, 2006). Took a week's rest and joined office on Sep 7, 2006, one day before my cousin who got married
(Thank God!!).

And now I was busy with my App to ISB and hope all these explains why I was absent for so long.

Bye!!

Mumbaiyya Manoeuver II

Here again, I came to Mumbai !! Official and absolutely nothing personal. If someone would like to consider the petty plan of having vada pav this time as a great personal motivation, he / she is free to do so.
Well, started on April 24, Monday early morning flight. "Monday morning blues", they say. But it was all red for me this Monday. Yeah, you guesed it right. Travelled by the bird (note the pun) airlines !!! ;-). EVERYTHING associated with the arlines is awesome, I really mean it !!! Hats off to the airlines. Landed straight at the office and no need to tell, the whole day I was dull and sleepy as I had to wake up at 4 AM in the morning (you never know about the traffic in Bangalore) in addition to which, I din't even wink in the flight (for obvious reasons :-) ).
The same hotel where I stayed last time. Had the vada pav on Wednesday. Nothing great about it. There is nothing to like or dislike about it. You like aloo bonda, you like Pav and here it is, you would like vada pav.
Well, checked out on Thursday morning, not before a surprise meeting with my Chennai chithappa in the hotel. I was with Qutub and Samir in the auto when something interesting happened. The police caught our auto and asked us to get out and asked questions as to where are u from, where are u going, why are u going etc etc. Fun though. Hope there is nothing serious.
Time to leave. Just wrote this before starting from the office. No need to say that I am excited about my travel with the bird again.

Also, wishing Shri. Pramod Mahajan for a speedy recovery.

Bye !!!!!

Happier than ever !!

hey

Feeling really happy. People around me are also thinking in the same line of what I wrote in my previous blog. But I don't want to write more about it now. But the devil in me (!!!!:-)) is keeping me happy, when I saw Venkat's and Karthik's blogs. They are confused as I were and am. Probably we were all destined to be confused for this period of time ;-DD

Feeling really happy - again. Why ? Because for the past theree days there was little traffic in Hosur road while going back home !!!! But y'day got screwed when coming. Took 2 hrs... to reach office (Chuck it - can't ask for toooo much.)

Happy again - India won the series against England. Hope they do a white wash :-)

Last but not the least..... Finished my appraisal in the company. Normally I finish it only 2 months after the deadline (??!!) but strange things are happening - I finished 3 days in advance.

That's it.... Will append more happiness as they come. Come on, it's all destiny !!!! (Not again :-)))

"Destined to Choose ?????"

Somehow, got into a philosophical mood (mode ??) !! Well, if you remember my "who am i ?" post, this one is not far off.

Just thought, "what are we (humans) guys here for ?". I am assuming we are what we are, as in we are all called humans and we all live in earth which is part of solar system and so on and so forth. But what is it that drives all of us ? Is there a HE (HE refers to SHE also :-)) or are the atheists correct ? If there is a HE, what is HE ? Are there many HEs (I mean Siva / Vishnu / Brahma .... / Jesus / Allah ) ? Does the christian HE save the Hindus and muslims also ? Ok, it's becoming too complicated. Let's assume there is one HE perceived as many. Let's not think about the atheists now. Since I am not one, I can't write about how they feel.

Now that there is a HE, what are we in front of him ? Why on earth (!!!???) did he create us(!!), is saving us (!!) and gonna destroy us (!!). These are all assumptions, right ? Science can't prove these, but I say science is something created by HIM and he din't give it the capability to perceive / prove HIM (fair enough ??). Neither did HE give science the capability to explain the BASIC day to day things, as in, science can say how the sun comes from the east, how the earth rotates / revolves etc., but can't say why these things are happening daily (??!!) !!!! Where are all these things heading to ?

Why are there doctors when someone is gonna die if he ought to ? Why are there engineers studying strength of materials / material science / magneto rheological fluids etc. who erect structures to be destroyed by an earth quake , Tsunami or terrosrists ??? Why are there meteorological centres which can predict natural calamities but can't do much about them ? Lots and lots more.

Are we just dolls in front of HIM ? Are we actors in the stage (The World) ?? Are we part of some game that THEY play ??? Do we get to make any choices at all ? Did I choose to do my B.E in Instrumentation and Control or was I "destined to choose" (interesting !!??) to do my B.E in ICE ?? Are things that we enjoy / experience today, the fruits of yesterday's efforts .... or is it just that we are destined to enjoy the fruits of yesterday's labour today or even worse, were we destied to put in efforts yesterday since we are destined to enjoy today ??? Were we destined to miss what all we missed so far ? Were we destined to get what we got so far ? Din't we "deserve" them ?

Again, did we choose our parents ? Will we choose our better halves or will it again be a "destined to choose" stuff ? Come on, two people can't even decide who a child they are going to "make" should look like :-). Not even, the gender at the minimum. :-(

Looks like, we have got nothing to do here. We are all living dead :-))) We just go through what was laid for us before. We are destined to laugh, cry, suffer, enjoy etc. and we just "do" it.

I think, I was destined to write something like this today :-))))))))

Bye for now !!!

Mumbaiyya manoeuver

I went to Mumbai .... Official, of course, with just one personal goal..... Visiting Mahalakshmi temple (I'm still a good boy, u see :-D)
Started from Bangalore on Feb 21, 2006:
Jet Airways 21:30 flight. My seat was in row 14 and I came to know that the Boeing flights don't have a row 13 in them (superstition !!!???) and it was next to emergency exit. So I was briefed by the air hostess on duty about the safety stuffs. Normally, I dodge it saying I know, but that day I din't want to make the hostess feel bad :-) and I listened patiently with some questions (doubts !!) in between. I am impressed with my human values myself !!!
Feb 25, 2006:
I had to cancel my return ticket to Bangalore for which I went to Santacruz (domestic airport). That just took me an hour. Then had a marathon sleep for 5 hrs in the afternoon, a nice dinner and again a sleep for ...................
Feb 26, 2006:D day - Visited Mahalakshmi temple.
You really can't keep me away from adventures for too long. yeah, I had one. Well, I was staying in Andheri(E) which is in sub urban Bombay and the temple is at a place called Mahalakshmi which is in the city. In Bombay, the autos are not allowed in the city and hence I planned to go by electric train, in spite of my faher insisting on my going by a cab. Come on, I wanted to get a feel of Bombay, after all. All went well - Took an auto from my hotel to Andheri station, got a ticket and boarded a local train. I got to know that Mahalakshmi is the 3rd stop from Dadar and when I reached Dadar I asked a co passenger whether the train
stops at Mahalakshmi and I got the answer I expected - NO. So got down from the train which had just started to move. I din't know of that there are basically Fast (limitted stops) and Slow(stops at all places) trains (I actually ignored the F and S that I saw against the trains, in the boards;-)). Happens. Took a slow train and the third stop really was Mahalakshmi. Got down and just when I wanted to feel a sense of accomplishment, came the beamer in the form of a ticket collector. Hey, I had purchased the ticket but it was a second class ticket and I had happily travelled in a first class coach. Then I had to convince him that I din't intend to do anything of that sort and that it just happened since I'm new to Bombay and son on and so forth. Eventually I had to pay the difference which was 10 times the fare I had paid (One more F & S confusion - coincidence !!! ). Put this at the back of my mind and took a cab to the temple. Had a great and peaceful darshan. Took a train back to Andheri (Got a F - class ticket and boarded an S train - GOOD !!) and once I came back to the hotel, I told myself "You have done it !!".
Mar 5, 2006: Return to Bangalore.

By the way, I liked Bombay more than Bangalore for more than one reason,
1. Bombay is very close to the definition of a city as compared to Bangalore.
2. Bombay is multi faceted as in there are people working in all industries, from all walks of life etc. unlike Bangalore where every second person works in IT.
3. Infrastructure - It will be highly unfair on my part even if I write a line comparing the infrastructure of these two places.
4. Weather - Some might feel Bngalore is better, but for someone like me who had spent 20 yrs in a hot place like Trichy, I enjoyed Bombay weather and really felt AT HOME. After all, that's the kind of weather that will encourage someone to work :-)
5. Dosa - Frankly, I felt the Dosa and sambar of Bombay much closer to the one available in Tamil Nadu. :-)
6. Autos - After Kerala, where the rate is fair and auto wallahs also fair I would rate Bombay autos.

Bye for now :-))

" "

Do not get confused by the title(For those who cannot see " " is the title, will tell u why later.). Well, this blog is about one of my collegues, boy, of course (at least that is what we all think), who gets at least 10 new names daily (Please refer my previous blog where i had made a mention about this character).

His name WAS (I mean it !!!) Srinivasan B. Let me list down the names that have been conferred on him till date with the short description of "why ?".

"Pasta"
The first name he got was "pasta", yes, the Italian food. This requires some explanation. It was lunch time at my office and we were all standing in the queue to get the food coupon. As we were perusing thru the menu / items for the day, Srini saw some pasta preparation listed and asked me as to whether he can take it. I said, "You can take it and I will be happy, because I feel happy when others suffer". Any homo sapien (with Sixth Sense) would have understood what I meant. But our hero opted for Pasta. It's ok till now. But, the moment he took the first spoon his face resembled acestors of homo sapiens and on top of that he blamed me the mishap citing that I din't warn him. I really couldn't take it and hence opted to call him Srinivasan Pastasundaram, just as a remembrance of this unnecessary blame that fell on me. Since Srini din't prefer modifying his second name, we made it a point to play around with his first name alone and hence named him Srinivasan "pasta" B (Observe the " " in which the name is enclosed, and hence this blog is titled so) and considering the length, modified the same as Srini"Pasta"n / "Pasta"vasan.

"What"
Do you expect us to leave someone who harrassed a teenage girl in a public gathering by "staring" at her and asking her "what ?" in such a tone that the poor lady fainted on the spot and is currently getting treatment for the ever dangerous "What phobia" ??? Definitely not. We named him "what" :-). Derivatives : Srini"what"an, pasta"what"on.

"*****"
Well, this guy's username is "Balai". Since that is too difficult to pronounce (!! ??) we shortened it to *****. Nothing more to it and he is in no way responsible for this name.

"Julius"
Considering the Italian connection that he got owing to his attachment to Pasta, we named him after Julius Ceaser (Good that Ceaser who was such a great emperor, is not alive amidst us to hear this :-) ) as, Srini "Ceaser", "Julius"vasan.

"Junk"
One other team mate found everything associated with him "junk" and named him "junk".

"Roadblock"
To be frank this is name that he got just 2 min back :-) :-)

" "" "
"" is a wild card here where in we can call him anything. Whatever he speaks / does will get him a name for sure. In short, you name it and you can name him with it :-)

He is one guy, who is keeping the spark of creativity in every member of our team ablaze. We just can't move a day without him and hence he canbe called as Srini "can't move a day without" vasan.

bye !!

I wanted to ..............

Hey
It's really a long time since I am making my presense felt in blogger...... Not that I did not have anything to write, just that I din't :-(. Now that we are just one day away from 2006, I just wanted to wind up 2005 with this blog.

Just thought of listing down what all I wanted to blog about since my last entry and hence the title.

Well, the most important thing I wanted to write about was the all important Saturn transit 2005. Oooooooops !! What all happened in and around that period. Starting from my IT return filing drama to a strategic change at the top level management of the company I work for. Not to mention the changes that happened in my project such as ramp downs etc. The Jupiter also transitted round about that time which made me attribute all good and bad happenings to those two planets !!!! I even remember once when I was in Trichy and my mother had added less
salt in the Pulav which she prepared and I was damn sure that it was because of either J or S :-)

The next one I wanted to write about was one hell of a strip in bangalore called "Hosur Road". S***. ****. #!%$#$#&(^(&#^$*%&(^*#$)(*)_********&#$#&#%^*( *^*&*%^*&$(#^*%!%*&_*%_(&%(*(% ^%*&$%(*-!@#$%~^&*(%)&%($&%((&%!)_(!+_$)!%$(!&+_)+)&(&%&!%$!*#_).I really don't have anything more to say. The time I take to commute to and from office, I could have completed a BE, an MBA and a Ph.D in investment banking :-). There were talks that our office will be shifted closer to the city, but, how on earth can I expect something so good to happen given that Saturn and Jupiter are at 12 and 3 respectively in my chart !!!!!!!

I can't forget the rain that lashed Tamil Nadu, especially Trichy, which resulted in the 9th wonder of the modern world (the eighth wonder is Aishwarya Rai for those who do not know.), water in "Kollidam" a river in Trichy, where I have never seen a drop of water for the past 23 years of my life. There were even plans of building apartments in that stetch of land !!!

And there were these day to day incidents (irrtiations) like, the guy who keeps on talking with his, I don't know who, in my morning bus, so loudly that I know 75 % of his teenage life myself; the poor soul in our team whom we give a different name on a daily basis("Pasta") ; I even had an incident in today's lunch where I saw the reality of "Kali" yuga... do not want to elaborate much though ;).

What else ???? Cant think of any more now.... Might be there is a part II for this blog. Meet u all next year :-)Hopefully, very soon.

Happy New Year !!!!

I did IT !!!

Quite a long time since I wrote ... Not that I din't have anything to write.

I wanted to write about that "chatter box" female whom I happened to see in my company bus, who din't stop her dialog about the organisation in her workplace as to, who is sitting where, throughout the journey.
I indeed wanted to write about that day when I was so irritated coz of spending almost two and a half hours to go home from my office and had a bus to catch (to Trichy).Also I wanted to write about the new house in Arakere to which we are going to shift in a week.

But superceding all those minor (!!!) stuffs is what happened today :-(.... JULY 25, 2005. A day which I would never forget at least as long as I would file IT returns !!!!!!!!!!!

Let me tell you what happened.... We were supposed to file our IT returns today for which we needed to get our original Form 16 (distributed already to us) and the SARAL form. Since I am a systematic (??!!) guy, I had brought my Form 16 to office desk quite few days before. No issues with that. I was able to get my SARAL form printed out from my company's intranet, fill it, sign it etc. Absolutely no issues with that too. When I thought that I am all set and just filing of the return remains, came the NEWS (shocking indeed) !!!! Looks like we need to have the photocopy of the PAN card. I thought that this is just a formality and proceeded to the queue. When we enquired inside I heard the inevitable !@#$%^&*( ... PAN CARD PHOTOCOPY IS MANDATORY FOR FILING OF RETURNS...

Wait wait.... I am getting what you are thinking now. "What's so great about getting a card xeroxed....???, a matter of Paises. ok.... Even if you do not have it with you go home, get it xeroxed, bring it back and submit.".... Great to hear.. But that was not cho chimple. My PAN card is in Trichy. I was not sure whether I had a photocopy of the same... Also, I had put all my documents in the house where I will be shifting next week. Booooooooooooom !!!

So .... started the day. Took an auto. Luckily I had someone in my club.... I got down at BG circle. Another auto to my place. Reached. Opened the suitcase. Opened my folder. Sh** !!! I donot have a PAN copy. So took an auto back and reached Silk board and waited for nearly an hour for the company bus. Came back......

In the meantime, I had called my father and told him the goof up. He had also made an auto trip around Trichy to get my PAN card from home.
Around 12:30 I was back in office. My father also. Now that he has the the card there were two options....

Option A : Take a copy of the PAN and fax it to my office. Sounds great. My father indeed did it. But receiving here had some hiccups. No film in the Fax machine... once that was fixed, "No paper ". That was also fixed. Then the machine, kind of vomitted, some 8 or 9 papers (backlogs). Mine came too..... GOSH !!! Neither my name nor my photograph was visible. The only thing that I could read was my grandpa's name printed after my father's !!! :-)SO called my father again and got it faxed again .... Believe me !! It was worse than the previos copy :-(((( Option A dropped.
Option B: Scan the card and send me a mail. Sounds cool.... But my day was so bad that this was also not coooool. The mail that my father sent first din't reach my inbox till now. Dunno where it is :-(. When I told this to my father, he sort of had a meeting with all his colleagues(pro'ly had a brainstorming session) and finally decided that he(they) will send the mail via their office ID to my office as well as Yahoo! Id. It did come at last. But only the front part of the card. That was good enough though. Option B worked !!!

The next phase was even more irritating. We joined the queue which was perhaps longer than the Hanuman's tail !!! We were in the queue for nearly 2.5 hrs and eventually I filed IT !!!
Called home.... My mother will be breaking a coconut to Ganesha. I asked her to add one for my account. :-)

The week has started like this.... Not sure what course it will take.... :-) Anyhow I won't mind blaming this on the Saturn transit ... After all I am going through the 7.5 year period of the Saturn ;-))

Ciaooooooooooooo !!

South Karnataka II

Continued ...

This was a surprise !!! Din't expect I will write this one today. By the way, my colleague pointed out that the places we visitted were not North Karnataka but South. I would change the topic as North Canara I and II.... Sorry !! Thanks to him ..

So, after the heroics that we did on the previous day, we got a good night's sleep. We were supposed to wake up at 05:45 AM. Psyche had set an alarm. The next day when I woke up it was 06:30 AM. We realized that the mobile was in silent mode and the alarm was set. Obviously no way we could have expected it to buzz. Good strategy by Psyche !!!

All said and done, we started to the temple. Udupi Krishna was looking simply superb. Small and cute. Had a nice breakfast in Udupi. The sambar was really good. SOmehow it was Tamil style. Reached back to the hotel and packed. Bye to Udupi and started for Dharmasthala.

When we reached the bus stand we had a minor shock. There is only one bus which has to come from Pune to Dharmasthala at that time. We had to take a private bus and go one some place first (Sorry forgot the name of that intermediate transit location :)) and take another bus to Dharmasthala. That was cool though.. We reached Dharmasthala by aound 2 in the afternoon. Enquired for buses to Bangalore from there and came to know that there is a KSRTC Rajahamsa bus at 10 in the night. So we were left with 8 hrs and we had to cover two more places.

Had a major shock now. A huge crowd in the temple for Darshan and we had only 2 more hrs coz the temple will be closed for 30 minutes from 4 !!! Joined the queue. Took us around 2 hrs. Very well managed. Manjunathaswamy was really cool indeed :-). Then came the best part of the day. We had the lunch at the temple. Traditional Karnataka style of Rasam first and then Sambar. No vegetable. In spite of that relished that first coz we were starving and secondly coz that was from the temple. So 80 % of what we wanted to accomplish was done at that time.

Planned to take a taxi to Subrahmanya.The driver was a nice guy. The route between Dharmasthala and Subrahmanya was totally forest and scenic. Reached there by 6. Absolutely no crowd. Had a peaceful darshan of the main deity and Adi Subramanya too. DONE !!! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED !!!! We congatulated each other. Had a bajji there which was not all that great. On the way back the driver stopped in a pillayar temple. Bonus !!! Reached back Dharmasthala... Karnataka tiffin and bus at 10. That brings us to the end of a memorable trip that none of us will forget :-)) (senti !!)

I had a day off on monday(Mahavir Jayanthi), the day we reached Bangalore. Others had to go to office. Just slept the day off.

Hope we plan and execute many more trips like this in the future. :-)

South Karnataka - I

Hi All
This blog is about the trip to North Karnataka that we (Balaji-also called as Psyche, Mukund- also called as Delay and karthikeyan- also called as King Kong) went for. Since you all know that we are good boys(even if you don't, know now !!!), our trip comprised of only temples. We were planning for quite sometime, but it came true only on May 20, 2005. The plan was to cover the following five places in two days (May 21 and 22) - Sringeri, Kollur, Udupi, Dharmasthala and Kukke Subramanya.

Quite a bit is there to write about the entire trip. So I am splitting the same and writing as two blogs and hence the title. This one just contains the happenings(!!!) on the first day.
I would like share one small irony. Something related to work. We at our office normally plan our release to the client on fridays. As it is obvious, I will have some plans of going places (at least to Trichy, on fridays). So normally there will be a little bit of tension in catching my bus etc. due to the release. But when it comes to going to temples like this, there used to be a some sudden last minute tension(don't know from where it evolves :-)) When we planned a trip to Tirupathi and when I was to visit our family deity etc. This time was no exception. That too, there is one specific module which creates the problem always(same one this time too!!- Probably that module was started in some kind of "Rahu Kalam" :-)). Our bus to Sringeri was at 10 PM and I had planned to leave office by the 6:15 PM shuttle. I ended up taking the 7:15 PM shuttle (at least !!) and reached Majestic by around 9:15 PM. This is some kind of indication that, He (or She !) always gives some kind of hiccup in the beginning just to test his devotees, perhaps :-)

So all set now. All four of us were in time at Majestic. We succesfully started to Sringeri at 10:15 PM. To start with, the pushback on the seat in which karthi sat broke and he crash landed his head on the girl beside him. He din't mind though :-) We reached Sringeri by 7 AM on Saturday. The road to Sringeri and Sringeri by itself was beautiful, doing justice to it's name.(By the way, Singeri = Sringa + Giri => Beautiful hill). We came to know that all the cottages were full and even if some gets vacted only families will be given preferrence against bachelors (This is something that i don't like, after all every one would have been a bachelor at some point of time, people are jealous of bachelors pro'ly :-DDD). So we had to get ready in the common bathrooms etc. No complaints. We were ready in an hour.

VOWWWWWWWW!!! Wasn't she gorgeous ??? Saradhambal, I mean - the deity at Sringeri. Such a majestic look and posture. Had a great darshan. Visited the Chandramouleeswara temple also, which is inside the same campus. The architectural beauty of the temple was also great residing at the banks of Tungabadra. We just put our legs into the Tunga as there were too may BIG fish. Then we reached the mutt. The mutt is on the other side of the temple separated by the Tunga. Waited for sometime for His Holiness to arrive. Was able to meet him and since we are from the right families (!!! :-)), we were even able introduce ourselves (as So and So's such and such relation !!) and talk with him. Felt really happy :-). Got his blessings and started from there. Since we were there in some kind of an odd time couldn't have our lunch at the mutt :-(.

Our next plan was Kollur. We did not have a clear idea as to how to reach Kollur from Sringeri. Each one we asked had his own route. So we came to a consensus that we will go to Udupi and then go to Kollur from there. We took a bus that started at 2:30 PM. The bus driver was a man of his words. He siad he will take us in 90 minutes and bang we were there at Udupi at 4 PM. The route to Udupi was also through mountains and we enjoyed that ride too. Sringeri Udupi was around 70 kms. The moment we reached Udupi we saw a bus starting to Kollur which we boarded immediately.

This strip was the most memorable one - in the other sense :-(.The bus driver had the worst habbit of stopping every 15 seconds. His timer was so accurate that he never drove continuously for more than 30 seconds at any point of time :((. Mukund was in some kind of form at that time. He almost reached salvation that he used to give the signal to stop the bus even if the conductor did not !!! At last we reached Kollur at 6:40 PM. Had a nice darshan and since Mukund knew someone there we even were able to do some special puja... :-))). Mookambiga does everything for a reason :-). Came out of the temple with a sense of accomplishment. Had the dinner there. Typical Karnataka Sambar (Ayyyyye :-((). Took a bus to Udupi. Had to stand for sometime but made friends with the driver and were able to sit near on the engine and in the steps. Had a tussle with two idiots, who wanted the engine seat (!!) and because of our influence with the driver (!!) ended up making those guys relinquish the seat. But we had to stand too... Was happy in spite of that as we had the sadistic pleasure of making them stand (ha ha ha).

Reached Udupi by 11:30 PM. Now comes the topping !!. We took a room (A/C) after rejecting two/three rooms in the same hotel. Everything was well till the power went off and we came to know that the generator that the hotel had was not working. Since it was an A/C room there was no way we could even open the windows. It was like a furnace inside. Karthi rose to the occasion. He really did !! Went straight to the reception and had some kind of quarrel and we (minus Psyche) backed him up and came to the conclusion that we are vacating the room (!!!). We got the full refund too :-)). The one thing that pissed us all off is the fact that Psyche was unaware of the entire situation and he was sleeping in the room covering himself with a blanket (!!@#$$&*^&*)& - These were the words that we used on Psyche at that time, censored for profanity :-)) )

Eventually we got a room in a nearby hotel which had a working generator and started a good night(day's !!!) sleep at 1 AM.

To be continued ...