Sights in Chennai

I reckoned that it was time I updated this page having bragged about lights twinkling and what not.

My brother's fiance, on her visit to Chennai asked me if there were any sights to be seen in Chennai. I couldn't really think of any "sights" as such, that might be worth showing her, besides the beaches.
However, I did manage to show her this little sight that I managed to capture on my phone.



Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the swan crossing of Mandaveli.

Forgive the haphazard manner in which the photograph was taken, I was moving on the bike, which, by the way, I was driving while taking this photograph on the 1.3Megapixel camera present on my phone.

Disclaimer: No swans were killed during the making of this post.

BROADBAND AT LAST!!!

Broadband at LAST!!
Technically, 128kbps doesn't classify as broadband, but, ell, it's still access to the internet. And, the best part of it all, it's RIGHT HERE, in my room.
I mean how cool is that?!

No. Don't answer that question, it was merely a rhetorical one.

One might think that I'm getting over excited about something that isn't really so much of a big thing. Well, to put it in perspective, try this:
Imagine that you live alone in a dinghy little room where your arm gets cut by the fan everytime you try to put on your shirt because the fan overhead is just THAT low.
Now, in this little room, till now, all you had for your entertainment is a device that fits into your palm viz cellphone. You used to look to your cellphone when you required entertainment.
Till one day, the sun shone. Bringing with it light. Light being emitted by a laptop and 4 LEDs glowing on a little box beside it, 2 of which keep winking softly at you in a friendly manner, calling out to you.
Beckoning you with those irresistible little flashes of green light.

Oh, the joy... Ecstasy!!

Life isn't all that bad after all.

I fear...

No, I'm not dead.. Atleast not yet.
Yes, I know it's been a long time since I posted.
No, I haven't forgotten to blog.
Yes, I was rather busy with other "stuff". (I know you dint ask for that answer.)
Yes, my semester exams are approaching which is why I have enough time to kill.

Before you read this post, I'd like to state that, peoples' fears seem trivial to the ones who aren't afraid of whatever it is that others are afraid of and vice-versa. (This applies to me,too)

Q: What is greatest fear?
This is a question I've been asking everyone, off late (The past 3 days).
Here are the responses I got..

Ans: "I fear (that)..."

1."...uhh..".
-These guys just couldn't think of anything that they could term as their "greatest fear". (LOSERS!! HIPPOCRATES!!)

2."Fear".
- Daamn! It sounds like a dialogue from an arbitrary Hollywood flick. Some guys just don't take me seriously. Yea.. Yea.. I know, it is very "wise" to be afraid of nothing but fear itself, but PUHLEEEEZZE, come off it!

3."Death".
- This one was a really popular one. It just doesn't make sense to fear death. When asked why they fear death because they "don't know what lies beyond it". Why fear something that's unknown?
But, then again, one fears something only because one doesn't know what lies beyond it. But, DEATH?
Come ON!!!!

4."I'll face lonliness","I'll lose my friends" ,"I'll lose Mr/Ms/Mrs.X as my friend" and the like.
- Such fears are based upon the kind of friends and family one has. Either that or you're just plain insecure. And yet, the people who said that this was their fear had or rather HAVE amazing friends most of whom I know personally.
Well, get over it! You know you got great friends which is exactly why you fear losing them (A bit of an oxymoron, that.. But, it's true). If you're still not convinced, I reckon you oughtta read,"Who moved my cheese?". If you already have then, you might want to give it another read and look at it from the perspective of "losing" friends. Noone "loses" their friends, you might lost touch with them, but that doesn't mean you "lost" them.

5."I'll be social reject ".
-Deep! That was one of the most unique answers that I got. A valid fear for which I can't seem to find a way to get overcome it. The man(girls can't have such deep fears... Oops, sorry!), when asked how he intended to overcome it replied,"I'm prepared for it, which means half the battle is won."

6."Spiders/Cockroches/Butterflies/rats/mice" and the like.
- GIRLS!! Actually, I'm afraid of mice too, but I don't fear them enough to name them as my "greatest fear" (You're right.. I do like to put words in quotes, but I reckon I don't make excessive use of it).

7."I may not be able to live as comfortable a life as I do now".
- I found this to be a very valid fear, I partly fear this too.

8."I may not be a good mother"(No points for guessing the sex of the person who gave this answer).
- I have no idea how THAT feels. I can't really relate to that owing to my sex.

Most of the responses I got come in one of the above categories of fears. As for mine, well..

I fear that I may not be "successful in life".
- As far fetched as it may sound, it really scares the begeeses outta me. Reasons for which are as follows:
1. I don't exactly have a "plan" for life. (yes, yes.. I'll stop quoting everything)
2. I don't know what I'm "good" at. (I didn't say I would do so immediately)
3. Oh, a few more, none of which I intend to publish. A lot of people read this page, even if you don't do so regularly.

How do I intend to overcome it?
- I don't exactly know. I hope to overcome it by the time I face it.

I get reminded of a dialogue from the movie Rang De Basanthi, where Aamir Khan says:
College gate ki ee tharaf hum life ko nachaathe hein.
Dim-lakh-lakh-thhe.
Dim-lakh-lakh-thhe.
Aur gate ke dujji tharaf, life hamei nachaathi hei.
Dim lakh-lakh-thhe.
Dim lakh-lakh-thhe.

Translation:
On this side of the college gate, we make life dance to our tunes while on the other side life makes us dance to its tune.
(If you're gonna comment, comment along with your "greatest fear(s)").

A.. B... C... D...

Having realized that none of my posts are corny enough to be spat at, I have decided to post this "poem" of sorts just so that some people may realize how corny I can be. It's a poem that I composed quite some time back before I even created this blog. One can't exactly call it a poem, but here goes.
(Note: The last letter of each line.)

Somebody called me,                      "A (ye)".
I wondered who this was not letting me    B (e).
So, I turned to                           C (see)
It turned out to be a                     D (Tamil, slang for a girl).
Smiling at me with her teeth bared        E (eeee).
I told her to off                         F (read fuck off).
She asked, "What                          G ?" (Hindi. meaning : Sir, Madam etc.)
Whilst spitting at me with her            H (-e) (read, "echie", meaning saliva in tamil)
And asked who was                         I ?(English. Meaning : I )
The tone of her voice implied she was     J (Jealous)
I introduced myself as agent              K (from the MIB fame)
From Salvador (e)                         L (El Salvador, to those who didn't get it, it happens to be a country)
Conversing, I asked of she listens to Min-M (read Eminem, The Real Slim Shady)
She said "No, I listen to only Sync       N" (read N-Sync, the ones always out of sync)
I said                                   "O" (read Oh!)
Then I realized I needed to               P (read Pee, ie to urinate)
For which I have to stand in a            Q (read queue)
Which others already                      R (read are)
And, they'll all say                      S (read Yes)
To coffee and                             T (read Tea)
This "poem" is for me and                 U (read You)
For both of us together make              V (read We)
Because you and you only make             W (read Double-U or Double-You)
I told her,"I never want you to be my     X" (read Ex-friend)
To which she asked,                      "Y?" (read Why)
I replied,"To sleep on your lap           Z" (read Zzzzz)

Just one of the days..

Just one of those days when nothing happens and everything seems to bother you.
Just one of those days when nothing, besides a stiff vodka can lift you up.(Hmmm..Wonder, why it's called a "stiff" drink..)

Has it ever happened to you?
You can't seem to find anything wrong with the world around you and yet things just don't seem right. Your friends seem weird (not that mine aren't normally..but still.. They seem weirder than usual). The old jokes that always cracked you up seem to lose their charm. The only thing you can think about is death and remorse and the entire pointlessness of living a life. Well, I know a guy whose everyday is just this (read Ranting human) but, this doesn't happen to me normally and yet I find myself posting one of those posts that don't exactly make sense but they seem to make oneself feel better about it.

If this post doesn't make you feel good about anything, "Yea, well.. Life's Tough!", it sure has hell has made me feel better about myself having spread the nothingness feeling through this world of nothingness.
Oh, a good bit of graffiti that I wrote (possibly the most productive thing about my entire day in college and also to quote "The most sensible thing you've ever said.")
: Life is just an experience to make one realize,how blissful death can be.

Don't ask me why ...

At times, when the engineering mind has been hit by a crisis and has painstrickenly managed to get out of it alive, he subjects to change.

That's exactly what did NOT happen with me.(As oxymoronic as it may seem to some of whom, who may ACTUALLY read this)

The phrase "Life is Tough!" is possibly the most common graffiti that one might see anywhere around me (by which I mean my bench in college). The phrase has been stuck with me for quite sometime now, I fail to remember when it started. If my memory serves me right (which it normally doesn't), I think it was my brother who implanted that idea in my head when I was 14 or 15 yrs old. Guess he moved on from the phrase whereas I seemed to have failed to do so. It seems like a perfect answer to any problem that one might have.
To demonstrate :-

• Computer conked! - "yea well, life's tough!"
• Constipated, stuck in the toilet for 2 hours - "yea well, life's tough!"
• Your girlfriend dumps you. - "yea well, life's tough!"
• This post sucks. -"yea i know who's gonna read it anyway..."

Amidst all this, one wonders why such submission towards 'life". And the answer lies in myself because I never completed the phrase. It goes : "Life is Tough...So am I".

Hike on a Bike - Part II

The Wait :-
I wasn't very far from where i actually live and neither did my aunt take very long to get there, and yet quite a few things happened by the time she arrived with my sister. I was just resting on the footpath when the man named Praveen started making conversation, first with futile efforts of "lie down", "stay put" and "wash your face". From where I got the water you ask? Well,the water was provided by this girl, whose name my memory fails me to recall. (For further reference I shall name her Angel) Angel, as I remember her telling me and Mr.Praveen (who was standing beside me through the entire ordeal), was an inhabitant of one of the flats bang opposite to the place the accident had occured and on seeing the accident she had rushed to see if she could be of any help. Well, that was that, she even showed Mr.Praveen her house if ever she could be of help and was off back home taking the bottle of water. She DID seem genuinely concerned. Next to arrive was one of my sister's friend, who lived nearby the scene of the accident and was informed immediately, by my sister that I had met an accident in the vicinity, after my phone call home. She just came to check up on me, and informed my sister that I was quite alright with a few bruises here and there.

It was then, that I started examining the damage done to my body. Quite a few scratches here and there, none seemed too serious, no deep wounds but a nagging pain on my right shoulder. It was then that it hit me that I had a much awaited basketball tournament comin up and these injuries were not going to let me play the rather important tournament. And the next thing I knew, I found myself conversing with Mr.Praveen about where I studied and the conversation eventually lead to the basketball tournament I was likely to miss.

Arrival of the flustered aunt :-
My flustered aunt arrived at the scene and was brought uptodate with the events so far. She immediately examined my wounds, and sent me with my sister to the nearest hospital "GS hospital" which was just a few metres away from where I'd just encountered the accident. Here I recieved a nasty prick on my buttocks(or was it on my arm ...my arm I think... I guess I said buttocks only cos it adds a bit of humor to the otherwise rather serious post), courtesy a tetanus injection which my dear sister was kind enough to buy once the nurse subscribed for it after cleaning up the few external wounds that I had. This injection was followed by an enquiry by the local traffic police who seem to have FINALLY arrived at the scene after being called by Mr.Praveen as soon as he witnessed the accident. And I seem to have passed the enquiry with flying colurs as it featured only basic questions such as, Q : "Do you have a license?"; A : "Yes, I do."

This questonaire was followed by another agonisingly long wait for the manager of ABT couriers to arrive who seemed to have got stuck in traffic. When he DID arrive, after the departure of the traffic policemen, my aunt was involved quite a lengthy conversaton with him during which he examined my rather "injured" bike and the broken headlight of his company's van and came to an agreement with my aunt that neither of us will press charges against the other as from the account of both, the van driver and the bike rider's (i.e mine), the accident was caused due to the mistake of both parties (well, I made sure I sounded as tough I was very hurt enough to convince the manager this...I jus hope that manager never has the chance to read this post). This was followed by my aunt writing a letter stating the same and getting signatures of both parties on the letter and keeping a carbon copy of the letter and keeping it for herself (it would be worthy to note that neither the van driver nor I signed on this letter..twas just between my aunt and the manager).

Now, been there done that, I got home with my aunt and my sister in an auto rikshaw after my sister accompanied Mr.Praveen and her friend to her friend's place where my bike lay for that night as everyone deemed me unfit to ride my bike back home. (Oh, the bike was in riding condition it seemed to move when one started and accelerated it)

Just for the record, Mr.Praveen was a boxer who lost his chance to represent India in an international boxing tournament because he injured his head after involving himself in a bike accident just like this one. All because he wasn't wearing his helmet just like I wasn't when I met mine. I seemed to have had a lucky excape, while he had not been as fortunate.

Oh, and as for my tournament, I managed to get fit enough to play the upcoming basketball tournament and we won that tournament though I SUCKED throughout the tournament. But, we won, which is what that mattered, by a single point in the finals.