Adieu Sachin..

Mostly people think that Indians are over emotional when it comes to cricket. While just like billion Indians, I was keenly following the last match he was playing in front of a packed crowd in Wankhede stadium in Mumbai, I was observing the live score in net. My British colleague saw that and commented with a naughty sarcastic tone “Ohh, com’on now!!! he has played for 25 years and let him retire. Don’t be so emotional. I know most of Indians are not working and seeing the match… Halting the entire nation and reducing the productivity altogether…”

Yes, we are emotional about cricket.. This is the one thing apart from war, which unites all of us.. Sachin Tendulkar has been a undisputed player without any black marks on his career spanning almost two and a half decades. When I started watching him, I was in my primary school and it was Benson and Hedges world cup down under in 92. There on I kept on watching him again and again and again… 

He never shown any attitude on field and always answered his critics with bat. He made Indians forget about the problem temporarily and made them enjoy them game. It doesn’t mean we have no respect for others, but SRT is in his own league. 

I don’t remember how many times I cheered with full throat when he hit. I don’t remember how many times I became emotional when he got out. 

Many of my friends who are SRT critics always tell when ever he scored century, India lost. Guys, Have a look at the statistics and you will come to know about the facts.

There has been always a cold war between Rahul Dravid and SRT fans though. Usually we had innumerable discussions on  lunch table about who is great and almost every time the discussions have ended without any firm conclusion. 

Well, as he departs from international cricket, there are number of stories published/shared in social media. I have come across one article would like to share here.

In 2003, before the Cricket World Cup in South Africa, the Indian team led by Saurav Ganguly came to Bangalore for a conditioning camp at the Chinnaswami stadium. At that time, Ishaan Raghunandan, my son, was a keen and talented cricketer, who was knocking on the doors of the under-fifteen State team. He lived and breathed cricket. 

Knowing that the Indian team was in town, Ishaan and a friend, Abhi, took leave from school to be at the Chinnaswamy stadium, hoping to catch a glimpse of their heroes. They both managed to sneak through the security cordon and enter the stadium, where they soon began to run around as ball-boys, picking up the ball and returning it from the boundary as the Indian players went through their net practice sessions.

Abhi was Ishaan’s fast friend. A tall and lanky boy, he was a right hand bowler and a left hand bat. He bowled fast leg breaks, with a round arm and square on action. With his height, he was able to get some disconcerting turn and bounce from the pitch. Abhi was a useful lower end batsman. He was a good player of the ball in front of the wicket and could hit the ball high and straight. In school cricket, Abhi’s special talent was to step out and hit straight sixes, like Saurav Ganguly. A playful boy, Abhi and Ishaan were fast friends, and deadly rivals on the field, if playing for opposing teams. 

In the stadium, Abhi and Ishaan started their own little game on the sidelines, with Abhi bowling to Ishaan. Sachin, who was batting at the nets saw that and liked what he saw. He beckoned to Abhi to bowl to him at the nets and appreciated his bowling. That day, Ishaan and Abhi spent a lot of time with their heroes. 

The matter did not end there. Sachin liked Abhi’s cricketing talent so much, he asked him whether he would be willing to play at a benefit match in Hyderabad. Abhi’s parents could not believe their ears when they heard of it. Sachin arranged everything, including air fare for Abhi, to go to Hyderabad for the match. 

The Hyderabad match was a benefit for a retiring cricketer and was played between ‘Chiranjeevi Eleven’, captained by the popular Telugu film star Chiranjeevi, and ‘Sachin Eleven’. Abhi was in the Chiranjeevi Eleven. 

When Sachin came in to bat, after a few overs, he asked Chiranjeevi whether Abhi could be given a bowl. Chiranjeevi readily agreed. 

So here was this fourteen year old boy, running in to bowl to Sachin Tendulkar! As he began his stride, Sachin beckoned to him to stop. He turned to the crowd and asked them whether they would cheer this young bowler. The crowd stood up and began cheering. A roar filled the stadium as Abhi ran in to bowl to Sachin. Abhi was not overawed by the occasion. Here was a batsman at the other end, and his job was to get him out. The crowd rose and roared for every ball, backing Abhi to do his best.

Sachin treated Abhi’s bowling with respect. Abhi was able to get some bounce and Sachin played him defensively. At the end of each ball, there was appreciation from the batsman, even as young Abhi ran up in his follow through. I think Sachin played only one scoring shot, perhaps scoring two runs, because he did play all six balls. At the end of the over, Sachin came over, patted Abhi on his back for his sterling effort and turned to the crowd, asking them to cheer again. Abhi got a standing ovation as he walked back to his fielding position. 

I will never forget the newspaper photos the next day, showing the crowd on its feet, behind the bowler’s arm, as a fourteen year old boy came in to bowl to the world’s best batsman. 

Oh, did I forget to mention one thing? Abhi has one arm.

(As in Facebook posted by Raghunandan TR, https://www.facebook.com/raghunandan.tr) 

I can’t forget that innings in Sharjah against Aussies, that innings against Pakistan in World cup 2003, that last over in Hero cup Semis against SA, that struggling innings against Pakisan in Chennai, 2011 WC century against SA and England …. The lost goes on and on.. 

I am not sure if the timing of Bharat Ratna is correct or not, but his legend will live on.. 

As saw in stadium “CRICKE_ is incomplete without Tendulkar”

Miss you SRT.. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqORhgh_LCQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AaR9Su1Va0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar

(Thanks to Mr. Raghunandan TR) 

Steam Vintage Rally

The Engineering in Britain has been quite advanced and there were lots of advancement. Particularly during early days when Steam engines were developed. Essentially they use Rankine cycle, where water is heated into steam in a boiler until it reaches a high pressure. When expanded through pistons or turbines, mechanical work is done. The reduced-pressure steam is then condensed and pumped back into the boiler.

Steam engines said to have been the moving force behind the Industrial Revolution and saw widespread commercial use driving machinery in factories, mills and mines; powering pumping stations; and propelling transport appliances such as railway locomotives, ships and road vehicles. Their use in agriculture led to an increase in the land available for cultivation.

These early advancement in the steam engine technology were used to applied to make use in locomotives and road use. Way back in 1784, William Murdoch, a Scottish inventor built a prototype road locomotive.

The steam engines came a long way since and for us studying these things was part of science subject. When I was called  by my colleague Sripadha to visit Steam and vintage rally held in West park Wolverhampton, I was not too sure what it will be. After struggling for almost 15 min to get a parking space, it was not a waste of time. When I heard it was a Vintage rally, my idea was there will be some old cars kept for exhibition and we could see them moving around. For my surprise, there was a huge gathering of people in the park and kind of noisy festival kind of atmosphere.

There were these steam engines kept for exhibition and they were all well maintained and in working condition.

Courtesy  – The Black country live steamers

This is a society dedicated to model miniature and full size road vehicles and stationary steam plants. The society formed in 1993 has 50 full time members (enthusiasts) with interest in building and operating of miniature steam road vehicles and stationary steam plants. The society situated in a part of West Midland, known as Black country, the name derived from the effects of the heavy industry which concentrated in the area from the time of industrial revolution, majority of which has now disappeared.

Amazingly the way these engines are maintained was worth appreciating and they still look new as if they are in service. It took almost 3 hours to finish the entire exhibition, that included old vintage cars and bikes along with some really cool boat models operated remotely in the lake.

There was a demo by fire service on handling of accidents and emergency situation. It truly demonstrated how much these firemen value the life. The fire department has also kept the vehicles for exhibition mainly to have a view inside the vehicle. It was unfortunate that some of the belongings were taken by some mischievous people  from the vehicles and were not returned. It should also be onted that, the fire department is a voluntary organization and they were conducting the demo without charging any money. Hope they got the stuff they had lost… 

Fire Drill – The West Midland Fire Service

Fire Drill – The West Midland Fire Service

I am not sure when we will start to preserve so many marvels India has with same passion and enthusiasm.

More Info :

http://www.wolvescivic.co.uk

email : events@wolvescivic.co.uk

Call – 01902 552099

Reference : en.wikipedia.org

Flash lights and Fuel Station

What Eye sees, ear hears, Mind Believes

– Gebrial Sheron (Ex-Mossad/CIA Agent)

The above quote is very much true with most of us. Based on certain facts/things we hear or see, we have a kind of preset frame of mind about everything. It could be a any commodity or movie or even a place/country, person etc…

This holds true very much with the image of India as well. I have seen many people from west coming and taking pictures of things which put us still as a poor country. Like three people riding on a bike, cow/buffalos on the road, road side pavements, beggars, daily wage workers and the list goes on and on… There are blogs which talk about the accent of Indians, about the eating habits and talk about the hygiene factor as well.  With recent incident of Delhi gang rape (I will talk about its effect on the image of India in future write up), there has been lots of discussion about India in foreign media and these things have definitely taken out “Feel-Good” factor from us.

Not only visitors (not everyone, but few of them) by putting a kind of a bad picture, make us feel low, but even writers who love to portray India in a poor fashion. Few award winning novels have put India in a very bad shape with less facts and more and more fiction. An Oscar winning movie, which has portrayed us in a very poor and ill manner, got plenty of applauds abroad. And unfortunately, we feel that it’s an awesome movie which got us Oscar. Well, I am more proud of Gandhi (1982, Dir : Richard Attenborough) rather than some movie which shows Indians as slumdogs.

Well, but all these things are what few people feel, there are still more and more people who come to India and fall in love at first site. There are still plenty of people who love to visit India again and again. Who have loads of good memories about India and that makes us to feel really proud.

When I came here to UK on a short trip, as usual I was having a preset mind about the place and people. It was sometime in office when one of my colleagues Girish, who is from India and was also on short visit told me that his navigation was stolen from the car in a parking area here by breaking the glass with a stone (Bargate drive in Wolverhampton, be careful guys. It’s better to be safe than sorry!!!). This thing really made me think as there are good people everywhere; there are bad people as well. And the same thing was told by my British colleague. Similar incident happened to my colleague Rajesh as well, in exact same manner but it was a famous shopping mall in Bangalore.

After this narration from Girish, I made sure that I don’t leave anything valuable in car or atleast to be visible to others from windscreen.

But there was one incident which really made me to change my perspective.

It was around 8 in evening and I wanted to refuel my car, and was driving on the Bridgenorth road with a speed limit of 30 miles an hour indicated on navigation and couple of speedcams on road. I was still not feeling very comfortable to drive on UK roads at that point of time. The traffic is not very chaotic here like home. People are quite strict about lane discipline and speed limits. Honking is strict “NO”, unless you break the rule or cross over lane. Simply honking is treated as rude gesture equivalent to scolding. Speed cams here and there made me scary about traffic rule violations and possible tickets which come with heavy fine. Also there was a scare of getting the license cancelled and need to take a drive test all over again to be eligible to drive again. Getting the license cancelled is not considered to be a nice thing here.

Unlike home, where we have a RTO officer sitting in a corner and asking us to take a drive, here it’s almost 2-3 hours test with an officer sitting beside you and taking you through a really thorough test. I have a couple of friends who have failed thrice and still attempting to get a license.

With all these things poping up, while driving to the fuel station (petrol bunk), I was followed by a yellow Nissan Micra, flashing high beams on me frequently. Initially I was thinking my speed is low, but when I saw the speedometer, I was driving at right speed limit. Subsequent flashing really got me worried and I took turn at the Bridgenorth road Shell bunk. As I was waiting to get down to fill up the fuel (Well, again there is no one waiting to fill up the fuel unlike home, need to get it filled self and pay in the counter), the same Micra was standing on the other side of the road. There was a chill in my spine, but somehow I was in confusion and also kind of a scare as what exactly is going on. Also I recollected about an incident which I read in paper about how a women was robbed in petrol bunk. I was about to move my car thinking that something is not correct and in the meantime a tall guy came and knocked the window of my car and signed me to lower the glass. I thought for a while and before I could think, he again told me to lower than glass. Hesitantly I lowered the glass and also I was under surveillance cam and also quite a few people in bunk. So it gave me strength that, I was not alone if something goes wrong.

“You have forgotten to put on the lights mate.. Just wanted to tell you to put the lights on before someone hits you from back accidently… put on the lights mate before you drive, as urs seem to be a new car. This is why was flashing the lights on you” the guy told me in a heavy English accent. At a moment I really felt sorry for imagining all the things about this guy without understanding what actually the intention was.

I got down from the car and thanked him before I put on the light.

He just smiled and said “No probs mate, take care,, cheers” and got into his Micra, waved and drove off with his friend (I assumed so).

I may never see him again to return back his favor, but this incident will remain in my mind forever as one of nice experiences here.

Thanks so much pal… Hope to see you again… Cheers…

Hemmaragala : Part 1

Every time we have gone out to visit a historical/holy place, we have found something new. I always wonder how many secretes our history holds and will we ever understand our past completely.

“Understanding our past determines our ability to understand our present”

–   Robert Langdon

Let’c come back from Langdons lecture in Paris to Bangalore. Many a times, we have simply moved out without deciding which place to go, but never ever we have to face disappointment. But this time, Sesh had a particular place in his mind to visit. A place called “Hemmaragala” (Google Map : Hemmaragala, Mysore District, Karnataka 571312). It has acquired loads of popularity since it appeared on TV.  The distance from Banashankari, Bangalore via Mysore is around 175 kms, but we could also go via Kanakapura. Mysore road is always a treat to drive and Sesh loves driving his Mahindra Scorpio on this road. I like the route because of different eat outs, where we could get good food and typical south Indian coffee.

From BSK to Hemmaragala

Leaving place early would always help (We left around 8 am on a sunny Sunday, September 1, 2012) to avoid road congestion and also on a Sunday evening, the traffic is more while coming from Mysore. There are many people who visit Mysore (natives or otherwise) and drive back in the evening. Also driving around 135 kms is not a big deal for many people.

As we have been to Mysore many times, we decided to skip the same and directly headed towards Nanjangoodu. The place is famous for Lord Sri Nanjundeshwara, another name given for lord Shiva.  Also known as Dakshina Kashi, Nanjanagoodu is 25 kms from Mysore. Located on the banks of river Kapila (Also known as Kabini), this place is one of the important places for Shiavaites. Nanjangud literally means the place where Lord Nanjundeshwara resides. Nanjundeshwara means the God who drank poison for welfare of the world (Lokakalyana).

Sri Nanjundeshwara Temple at Nanjangud is one of the ancient temples of Karnataka. The original Nanjundeshwara temple is said to be of Ganga period (325 – 1000 CE). Later, this temple has been renovated by the Hoysala kings. Both Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan had close associations with this temple. Wodeyar kings have provided various grants to renovate the temple.

Ams, Bhoo, Vasuki and Sesh.

Main Gopura

It is believed that sage Gauthama stayed here for some time and has installed a Shiva Linga, the idol of Lord Shiva. Lord Nanjundeswara also referred to as Lord Srikanteswara, Vishakanta, Nanjunda. It is also believed that Lord Nanjundeshwara cures diseases of his devotees. The spacious temple also houses minor shrines of Lord Narayana, Chandikeswara, Parvathi, Natya Ganapathi and others.

There is also a interesting legend with lord here. When one of elephants of then Mysore King Tipu Sultan went blind and after repeated attempts, the elephant got cured with the grace of lord and hence Tipu Sultan called the Lord Hakim Nanjundeshwara and presented to the shrine valuable jewelery and a Maragatha Linga, which is installed by the side of the Goddess shrine.

This is place where one of hit songs of Matinee Idol Dr. Rajkumar for “Anuraga Aralitu” has been shot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEnn3_82Yr4). Not to mention the same movie is remade into Gharana Mogudu and Ladlaa in Telugu and Hindi respectively.

An ancient mutt of Sri Raghavendra swami is situated in the town. The Gurus image is said to have been found in river Cauvery by a king, who consecrated it in the mutt. Almost walk able from the temple, Sri Rayara matha is must visit.

Immediately, we pushed forward towards Hemmaragala from Nanjangoodu, which is around 30 kms on the way to Nanjangoodu-Chamarajanagar state highway. There is a diversion from the road to reach passing by Basavattige and Hedthale.

The temple is neatly maintained and getting a uplift from contribution from devotees. It will be busy especially on weekends.  It houses Venugopala Swamy, Incarnation of lord Vishnu. As per the legend, the temple has “Narayana Danda” (Stick) used by Koundinya Maharshi. It is said that Lord Narasimha gave the Stick to Maharshi to get rid of evil powers and also it is said that once it is kept on our head by the priest it will nullify the sins committed by us over our various cycles of birth and death and further it will be used for welfare of the world. We were very lucky to visit such holy place and come in contact with “Narayana Danda” which bestowed us its blessings which in turn has immense powers.

Another View of the Temple – Hemmaragala

Entrance to the Temple … Garuda Kambha …

Many of the temples across India have people (especially beggars) who disturb tourists and keep on asking for alms. Such things not only provide a bad name, but also show India in poor light from western tourists’ perspective. We have seen many tourists taking pictures of beggars and putting in blogs. The local administration has to find a way to curb this menace and really make India – Incredible India.

Well, once we had Darshana, we pushed back and went on the way to Hedethale, around 2-3 kms from Hemmaragala on the way back. Hedethale is also known as “Thrikutachala” as we find idols of Lord Sri Lakshmikantha, Lord Sri Gopalakrishna and Lord Sri Lakshmi Narasimha in same place. The temple is built in 12^th century by Hoysala dynasty.

Sri Lakshmikantha swamy

Sri Narasimha Devaru

Sri Venugopal Swamy

We were very lucky to visit such holy place and come in contact with “Narayana Danda” which bestowed us its blessings which in turn has immense powers.

Lord Narasimha has amazing and spectacular eyes. The priest explained us the history and importance of the temple with lots of patience.

It was almost 3 pm, when we pushed off from Hedthale.

Next things are easy to guess –  Hot masala Dosa @ Siddharth with hot filter coffee…

Credits :

Inputs/Photos – Sesh

Editing – Amitha

Ref : http://indiatemples.co/temple/id/245/nanjundeshwara-temple

RAF visit …

It’s been almost 3 months in UK now. So far we had not visited much of the places around, mainly due to the weather. There is an interesting thing to share here. When we were travelling in cab in to office first day, our driver who was from Punjab, told us a thing to remembering while in UK.

“Don’t trust three “W”s while you are here. Women, Work and Weather”

I am not sure about the first two, but was pretty much agreed to what he said about the weather.

I had quite bit of interesting things to share, but may not be in this blog page. But, will surely share shortly.

My colleague here suggested me as I am here for short time, I could visit as many places as possible and try to understand the culture and way of life.

Let’s slightly go off topic now..

Second World War (Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WW_II) and the holocaust has been topics of my interest and I always believed that the planned execution of millions people could have been averted, if the powerful nations had directly confronted the communist regime and put pressure to end the extermination .(Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust)

The pain, the horror and the helpless suffering of people is simply un-imaginable and sometimes it is very strange that how could we humans could be worse than animals. I have read quite a bit, seen documentaries, movies and sometime really feel it is the struggle and suffering makes us strong as we see the state of Israel today.

When my colleagues told me that the Royal Air Force museum has few of the best aircrafts used during world war, we were naturally excited to visit the place in Cosford (Post code :TF11 8UP). With the help of Sat-Nav, finding a place in UK has not been a problem. And as it was Easter weekend, and we wanted to make sure that we reach the place as early as possible. With the company of my colleague, we were all set… The Sat-Nav actually guides to the rare entrance and we felt we were lost. But we did follow the sign board and took help to find out the place. The best thing what I noticed is, people here are friendly and willing to help. When we asked the gentleman for way to RAF museum, who seemed to be busy in some discussion with his friends he came instantly and told us the way. It wasn’t much difficult to reach then…

Built on a massive scale, the museum hosts  a world-class aircraft collection, integrated with special exhibitions, films, interactive, artwork, engines, missiles, photographs, uniforms, medals and research and education facilities (http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/). It has a section dedicated to the test flights, war planes and the military hardware like missiles and tanks housed in 4 massive hangars.

The gear

Entrance..

There are huge transport aircrafts outside, and with brief history and service period, built and other details. In fact all the aircrafts have basic info about the usage, decommissioning and the contribution to the War or otherwise. The hangers have history, development and other literature related to the WW II, and the history of the aircrafts. There are pictures of POW cells and interesting write ups as well. Reading all of it takes time, but its worth spending time there.

Quite a bit of Indian connection as well. As we were once a British colony and as a part of empire, India did participate in the war fighting beside British Army. The medals and the subsequent contributions are mentioned and the efforts are lauded in the form of write ups.

Noor Inayat Khan was direct descendent of Tipu Sultan.

There are games for kids, which my colleague’s son aged 3  enjoyed most, including controlling the flight using joystick and dropping the bomb. And Yes, there is a 4D demo as well, but we need to buy the tickets for that.

Apart, there is a dedicated section to the cold war and nuclear arms race; there is a full demo on disarmament and Cuban missile crisis as a short documentary with complete audio visuals.

With the advancement in science and theory of relativity and the famous E=mc² equation by Einstein (a Jew), that led to the development of the nuclear bomb and the subsequent test know as the Manhattan project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project). It was explained in brief, but there is a connection to the holy Shrimad Bhagavat Geeta (I remember reading this in Kannada Magazine Taranga when I was in high school).As the atom bomb was detonated on 16 July 1945 at 0529 HRS,Physicist Robert Oppenheimer, Supervising Scientist Manhattan Project remembers a quote from Geetha.

RAF Museum… Brief write up about Manhattan project.

“If the radiance of a thousand suns

Were to burst at once into the sky

That would be like the splendor of the Mighty one…

I am become Death, The shatterer of Worlds”

Indeed, with the “Paapa/sin” at the peak with death of millions of people during WW II, the end came in the form of great power accompanied by lights of thousands of suns and to destroy/wipe out the population as a whole ( I am not justifying the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombing in any way and have my deepest sympathy to the suffering caused.)

Background 

When Lord Krishna, shows his Vishwaroopa to Arjun while preaching about the ultimate Karma, everyone in the battle field of Kurukshetra see a light as bright as thousands of Suns. It was Arjuna, Bheeshma Pitamaha and Sanjaya see the actual Vishwaroopa of lord Krishna. The Purana’s have extensive reference to the devastating powers some astras/arms carried and are more like modern day nuclear weapons. What is more interesting is the technology that has been explained in detailed including the airplanes, weapons and their effects. There is also reference to the responsible usage of such weapons as they could potentially make the soil useless for hundreds of years.

With all these preaching, which date back  almost 5000 years , we still have to learn a lot from our ancient culture.

It was a visit worth remembering.

Though we could not explore all of it and its infact impossible to do so in a single day, it was indeed a memorable trip for us. With crowd swelling every moment and virtually no place in cafeteria, we finished some yummy lunch in there and pushed off back home.

(Thanks to Amitha and Sripadha for the pics)

(Editing – Amitha)

Food and Us…

There are two things I just love to do it anytime. Travel with company of close friends (to be particular, its Sesh, Vasuki, Bhoo and Ams) and eating. Though I am out of my home country right now, but these are the most missed things and I feel if these things should be shifted somehow here in UK.

After a hell of hectic week (I am not sure its due to work or due to something else), we had company of Sesh and Vasuki to hang around. And to know all the perfect locations, there could be no one except Mr. Seshraj who could guide us. Born and brought up in Bangalore, he knows each corner and at which place what is best prepared. Apart from experiencing best South Indian cuisine including our national breakfast Dosa, under his valuable guidance we have tasted it all in South Bangalore.

From SLV near Ramkrishna Ashrama, Brahman café to MTR near Urvashi theatre, he is never tired of driving and always be with us all the time taking us through nooks and corners of Bangalore. There are instances when we had breakfast in “South Thindees” in Jayanagar and had evening coffee in Siddharth in Mysore. There are innumerable number of such memorable journey we had, sometimes we felt crazy about ourselves, but we really enjoyed all the trip.

My lecturer in collage used to tell “If you are failing to PLAN, the you are planning to FAIL”. Well, sir without planning we have made all of our trips successful and we really enjoyed it.

Times when Vasuki/Ams felt bored, Sesh never got bored to drive and take us along on some real long trips. Some trips we explored old architectures, but some purely meant for food. As a group we never planned to go to a particular place, but only decided when we crossed the city limits of B’lore and hit the highway.

Well, here was one more thing. Most of the times, this was the toughest task – Where should we get food ?

Waiting for Pizza..

Near Tiffanees.. On Mysore Highway..

Ise bolte hain din main taare dikhana.. lol

It’s not because we have less choice, but because we had tasted in most of them. Sometimes it used to take 10 min to decide and sometimes it’s close to 45 min.

Apart from these, we had (have) two groups in here.  One, who loved typical South Indian food and another group which loved (Loves) Pizzas, Noodles and all Junk food. And the later category has Bhoomi and me…

My search for good food continues here during my stay in UK and I miss terribly company of Sesh and Vasuki.

With guidance from my local colleagues here, I search extensively for Indian restaurants and café’s. When my colleague Graham informed that “Chicken tikka” is the most extensively liked national dish of UK, I was quite shocked. We get Darjeeling and Assam tea as well and that’s also a part of breakfast. All in all quite a bit of connection between India and UK and I am loving it.  Local people here love to explore Indian options and love the curry and spices. And well, that’s the reason British came to India in search of Black gold.  A place like UK which is more about multi-culture and multi-ethnic, I am successful in searching Asian (rather Indian) shops and hotels and take-aways. Though, I am not extremely happy, but not disappointed as well. Though Wolverhampton is not as big as Bangalore, it has more than 30 Indian restaurants. I have seen people mostly talking in Hindi and Punjabi.  Though I love to search for different type of food from different cultures and countries, being a Vegetarian my options are limited. I am not disheartened or feeling sad. But my adventure of tasting food continues… Without our close partners Sesh , Vasuki and Bhoo…

Love you guys.. 🙂

Sadistic Pleasure

Sadistic pleasure…

I always try to pull leg of my pals around me. But lots of times close pals around me, too pull my leg. How we take up is entirely up to us (them). There are instances when these kinds of things backfire as well. It happened once and my colleague had termed it  as a “sadistic pleasure”. Though it was not a serious thing, but that expression with which he told was simply amazing and worth receiving an award.

From that time onwards the word sadistic pleasure (SP) is in my mind as I want to find out a right definition for that through people’s behavior. I tried to go through some instances when people around you try to piss you off and that can be termed as SP. There have been quite a few instances in our apartment when some individuals try to simply create trouble to association members by pointing out unnecessary issues. I, also being a member of the Resident’s association feel awfully irritated.

There are instances when someone gets stuck up in the lift and press a panic alarm. This is essentially used when power is off or lift has a breakdown. But one gentleman does that to just check to see if the security person can come or not.

The same gentleman always try to identify the flaw in the current structure and the way things are handled. But never makes an attempt to be a part of system and contributing in some way to make things work. Instead he likes to stay out and keep on barking about some useless issues.

There is a gentleman who can park car on the way of the other car, and expect that he should be informed 3-4 hours in advance. And in case of any emergency, the one whose car blocked up should be on the mercy of god. Apart, this gentleman also goes on giving advice about getting a cab or borrowing car from other people and carry on with the work.

A former association member always used to send reminders late night about paying the monthly maintenance, but completely forget to pay the same for two months and remain totally ignorant about the same.

One more typical SP: You like the food, but keep on telling the one who prepared that this can’t be done by you. Initially express your displeasure over it but later end up finishing all the stuff. But never ever acknowledge or at least express some words to encourage to the one who has prepared it.

There are more and more … But better to keep them off and save ourselves from some negative energy.. 😉

Online chatting

A Guy WAS chatting with a female (never met her directly) – Online chat.
(Background, both are s/w engineers by the way and both work for real big MNC’s )

Hero: Hey…GM (Good Morning)… How’s u doing today?
Female: VGM…Day is going good and it got better having found u on chat

Hero: wow…am honored, u know what, my day starts only when I find you on Chat
Female: Yep…me too feel the same…Brb (be right back)’ll get some Coffee.

Hero: OK(Hero waits impatiently. Meanwhile, his manager comes to his seat.)

Manager: Hey, I need some help from you
Hero: [**** This guy always comes at wrong time] Yeah tell me

Manager: Could u write a program for me which generates nth prime number, given value of n. Would you give this by today evening?
Hero: I would do that, but I think it’s quite hard, is it ok with you, if I Give it by tomorrow evening.

Manager: Yeah, that would be fine. Thank you [Leaves the place]
(Our hero sighs and stares at his monitor waiting impatiently for Female to Arrive. All of a sudden smiles on his face. Over to chat window…)

Female: Hey, am back
Hero: cool, you know what my manager does, She’s kinda….. keeps asking stupid Things, tries to give me stupid work

Female: Yeah, it’s the same everywhere. Real sick ppl these managers are!!
Hero: Yep, u rite!!

Female: Hey, can u do me a favor
Hero: *smiles* sure, why not.

Female: Hey, I want you to write me a program to print nth prime Number; given N. Would you give that to me by tomorrow evening? Plzzz. You know it’s real Urgent for me to work this out
Hero: hey, that’s a one-hour’s work. Sure check Ur mail in an hour from now. ok?

Female: THIS IS WHAT I ASKED U WHEN I CAME TO YOUR WORK PLACE. NOW YOU KNOW WHO I AM!! AND ONE MORE POINT…. YOUR 1 HOUR TIME STARTS NOW!!

 

(Forward sent by Vinayak Mande)

Long live Junglee Jawani

There is nothing “BAD” than choosing a movie which is not only a flop, but also v realize that we’ve been self duped in selecting it. It happens with many of us and keeps on happening.

Though I don’t  remember the number of disaster movies I’ve seen (last one being Raavan), but keep on doing the same mistakes every now and then… And it really feels happy (I am not a sadist, but it’s really fun to pull someone’s legs like that) that someone is following ur footsteps. One of my colleagues has been a “forced bachelor” for long weekend and to kill boredom he went to a Telugu movie called “Bhava”. I did see the poster, but did not care much. Well, to my colleagues surprise he was alone in the balcony throughout the movie. It must be quite hurting to know that (I could understand the same as I also went through that phase in life…).

I too had a similar experience once during my college days… Idea was to get refreshed from the regular boredom and to have some fun me and collage pal Ravya went to a movie called “Kaalia” to Prakash theatre in Belgaum.

Well, the biggest foolishness was to purchase a balcony ticket.

I was optimistic that at least some 10-15 seats will fill up by the time movie starts. But it did not take much time to realize that I was wrong. I and my pal Ravi were the only two people sitting in balcony along with few front benches (what we call Gandhi class people).

To our shock, even the guy who was supposed to close the curtain was also not there. I think the theater people were so sure that nobody will come to watch that particular movie in balcony by paying 25 bucks.

There were quite a lot of movies with combination of Mithun chakraborthy with some not so top class B grade heroines at that time!!! I remember reading somewhere he had a record of maximum flops in a row as well and having entered Guinnis book of world records for that awful achievement (Well, Abhishek tried a lot to give a tough competition, but he could not succeed-A real bad luck Jr.B). This movie had action sequences which would even send the Hollywood stunt folks into shock.

Later it became a part of our college life to go and watch Mithunda’s movies to kill the boredom and have maximum entertainment with a group of 10-15 friends. It used to be fun. Sometimes we used to get confused whether we are watching action or comedy movie.

As most of the movies had similar storyline and all of them shot in Ooty. Almost all of the movies TLV Prasad used to be director and being produced by Mithun Dream Factory (I think now he has serious competition from RGV’s Factory. Remember his films like RGV ki AAG, Darling, Naach, Agyaat and many more).

Here is the interesting thing: TLV holds record as one director doing so many numbers of films with one Hero ( Mithun ) without break in short span in LIMCA BOOK OF RECORDS.

Though these movies fail to get notice by most, many such movies came later and created their own space and audiences. (If we could recollect in Rockstar, Nargis asks Ranbir to take her to a movie called “Junglee Jawani”) With minimal investment and eye catching posters, B grade movies used to make good business. Off late, there were many articles on the success rates of such movies with producers making decent ROI. There was an article in INDIA TODAY, according to which there were special theaters in metros like Mumbai and these movies always used to run full for most of the times. Even now, I see some posters like that, which means B Grade movies are here to stay…

Well, all we can say is “Long live Junglee Jawani…”

VV Puram’s Eat Street

Me and Ramesh (Ams Cousin) whenever meet, among many  there is one topic we never miss…

“Eating”

We both love food equally and like to try out different spots to satisfy our taste buds. Though we both have not visited the places together even once, but still share our experience on various eat outs. During routine discussion he mentioned about VV Puram’s Eat Street.

Off late, I was planning to visit but it was only during Akshata’s (Ams’ cousin) visit to our home, couldn’t resist my temptation and finally we three ( Me, Ams and Akshu) planned to visit the place. With brief intro from Sesh (who is my food guide and knows lots of unexplored places in B’lore) we finally headed to VV Puram.

It was on the weekend and seeing that “food crazy” B’lore crowd is indeed a treat. The first visit was not at all a disappointment. The entire street has lot to offer. We started from Paddu, then went on to eat Dosa, Pav Bhaaji, Vada pav and so on. Finally Ice cream with Gulkand and all the food is for a quite reasonable price. There are stalls which sell Akki rotti, Ragi Rotti, Idli, Tatte idli, Chats, Chinese food, Holige and so on.

Thing is, you have to stand and eat  like a “street food”. So there isn’t any question of status or anything of that sort. Though there are people who like to come in the car and eat in the car itself. But somehow that causes hell of traffic issues and problem to everyone out there. As the street is narrow, there is not much of a place to drive around like MG road. It is really sad some people lack that basic common sense. Alas! these days eating/ordering in car has become a status symbol.

After that first visit, there have been quite a few visits to VV Puram Eat Street. But this week’s visit was worth remembering as we went in Sesh’s new Scorpio and there was Avarekaal Mela organised by Magadi Farmer’s association. It was fun till the end. There was lot of Avarekalu related food available this time. And boy, the crowd was huge and even the set up for preparing the food was treat for eyes. There were people standing in queue to get the coupons, and somehow Vasuki and Ams succeeded in getting some Kodbale and Ambode. This time as well all the food were awesome. Also, our Sesh knew many shop owners there. We could taste  new varieties of food including Hesarubele Masala (this was indeed mouth watering). Expcept Avarekal Uppit, all the things were really tasty. (This may feel I’m over enthu but, I simply love Mom’s Avarekal Uppit… and rate it as the best Avarekal Uppit in the world.)

Avarekal Dose

With jokes every now and then from Sat and Sesh, we did not notice we had spent more than an hour on the street.

It was a super Saturday that ended after having desserts @ Natural’s in Jayanagar. Though after coming home we continued our gupshup at Sat’s place till early mid night. Sat had some excellent flavoured tea bag collections which we tasted late night and our eat out came to perfect end.

Further, sleeping at 2 AM and waking up early morning on a Sunday and expecting breakfast from our better halves is rude on our part, Sat being a very good hubby called us at 10.30 AM and came up with the idea of having breakfast at SLV, Gandhi bazaar.We were just awake and without wasting time hopped into Sesh’s Scorpio and vrooooooooooooom..

Wow..What a way to begin Sunday..

Avarekal mela is over. But guys, it’s never too late to visit VV Puram’s Eat Street to enjoy some real best delicacies of Bengaluru.

If you don’t know how to go there, here is the way… Simply ask for Sajjan Rao circle, park your vehicle around the circle and take a left from VB Bakery.

Average cost per person : Approx Rs. 100

(Edit: Amitha)

A fire argues?