Moments

For the past 7 years, I have been restrained to drive motorised vehicles. Exercise and concern for fitness were considered not my cup of tea. After all I could boast of having an "all pass filter" digestive system that would not take in more  carbs than needed. And absorption of fat was close to nil for majority of my growing years. Getting to the age of 3 times 11, I thought of adopting a new "wahan" (vehicle). The one that I dreaded so much at the age of 11. The one that gave me 1+1 fractures at the age of 22... A rockrider 2.0 After few years of motivation and pestering from my dear better half, I finally decided that I would ride a cycle to office. Gifted by her for this birthday.. I settled for an old one from a colleague who relocated out of the country. Who knows how many days I am going to keep my promise!! I didnt want to waste too much on a failed attempt. First 10 days, I was excited. On days when I had to travel farther to client side, I got up ...

After a wonderful trip to the Great Ocean Road (read here ) and rest for 2 days, we set off for another one eastwards. We had booked the early morning flight on Thursday. As we were flying JetStar a low cost airline which charges for checkin baggage, we had pre-booked only 20kgs. That seems fine. How much would you carry for a 3 day trip! Shock! Shock! Our suitcase which seemed pretty light on our hands showed 15kgs on the weighing machine. PrasSree had packed reasonably well at 10.5kgs. Re-packing begins!! Fortunately we had lot of margin in hand baggage allowance. So - lighter stuff from hand baggage to check-in one, heavier ones (guess what! 4 jeans, jackets (not that it would be too cold in Sydney.. but still you never know), toys) shifted to hand luggage in numerous pick-ups (we could take 12 pieces). Co-bro was little angry with the huge queue and the mess we created but we escaped his ire. Appetizer Domestic terminal at Indian airports see lot of crowd and hence serve d...

Train journey brings back lots of old memories. Those summer vacations when we travelled 60 hours from varanasi to palakkad via chennai. Trip that would start with excitement of having frooti or limca, filled with fun playing cards, roaming around the train compartment, jumping from one berth to another, lying down and reading comics to magazines to novels. We would get tired by the end of second day due to terrible heat, again to be filled with joy of reaching our hometown as we cross the walayar border. I was always amazed how the breeze could change so abruptly as we enter kerala. Then there are innumerable trips from trivandrum to trichur or palakkad during college days.  Those were times of getting concession forms from college, rushing to railway reservation counter the day ticket booking opens especially onam and Christmas. And there were occasions when there would be flash strikes or hartals that would give unexpected long weekends. Finishing classes, sometimes bunking the...

My birthday is on June 24, pronounced as tendy-four. I was super excited from today morning. So much of preparations - dress, matching accessories, decoration, return gifts. The party was at my thatha's home as most of my friends are in their apartments. I watched mom take out my new dress - pink and blue - bangles, hairband, clips and watch (Nathan thatha got it for me last weekend). Dad was busy wrapping the return gifts. I kept pestering him with questions about what he is doing. "Main aisi hi hoon" :-) Thatha and paati converted their living room into a party hall with balloons and disco light (wow they were so pretty). In the evening, mom got the cake. BLUE CAKE!!! I couldnt keep my eyes off it. But you know, I am not naughty. I just kept watching it till all my friends came in with their smiles and gifts. My first gift was a CYCLE. Paati had promised it and got me one few weeks ago. I love going on a ride on it. Second gift was from Pemmai. Beautiful white ...

My name is Va'sha Gi'ish. I am VG too and wanted vgblogs to start blogging as I become 2 years old in 2 weeks from now. But my dad has already taken it up. So I chose to get into his blog and start posting there. Hello uncles and aunties, (I know the ones of my age cant read this.. hi..hi..) I dont know if I want to become a software engineer like my parents, but as a tribute to them, let me also start with a Hello World one!! Few things about myself 1. Everybody says I talk a lot. Do you know my dad also used to ask too many questions when he was my size? Poor grand-dads - mine as well as my dad's - had tough time answering him. I am going to take revenge on their behalf 2. I am learning, learning and learning. So far I know names of 7 days of a week, 12 months of a year (Gregorian calendar as well as Malayalam one), 27 nakshatras in a lunar calendar. 3. My parents have tried to teach me counting 1-10 in English, Tamil/Malayalam and Hindi. I try my best but som...

Europe - the Dream Honeymoon Destination Going abroad for a honeymoon is the norm amongst engineers, the next generation middle class who aspire to splurge. Europe, particularly around Switzerland, is the most sought after place in the summers. Roman or Spanish beauties are probably the next best choices during colder seasons as they provide some Mediterranean respite. In our case the honeymoon, Err.. I should say the second one in two months after I tied the holy thread on her and we walked around the holy fire. There was an official trip being planned to send me to customer site in Grenoble, France. The trip was almost going to be at the expense of my first honeymoon, but luck favored me and it got postponed to January 2011, a good time for planning the second honeymoon. I would skip the official part of the trip, lest this post becomes too lengthy. I will post that here later. After 5 days of customer visit (for me) and confined to the hotel room (for my wife), we decided to...

There were 4 adults and 2 kids. In India you could have driven in one sedan, but in Australia babies should travel in car seats. We settled for two cars - a new Honda Jazz and an older Hyundai Elantra. Driving on wide freeways through the country side had been my dream. Two cars, right hand drive, like in India and Indian license valid in Australia... I was thrilled... But fate was against me. I had forgotten my Driving License.  So we set out; with boys in one and girls in another. Of course the boys had the new Honda!! Passing Hoppers Crossing, we hit M1 expressway toward Geelong. Pras was keeping an eye on the Elantra behind. It was doing pretty well, zipping past other ones, changing lanes with dexterity at 100kmph....  Someone reading this will be happy :P After few minutes, the landscape had changed and kept changing every few kilometers - vast plains of fields, probably after harvest, small hills of meadows, some patches with huge trees lining ...

April 1st: Happy ..... Day Not such a good day to brag about oneself. Nevertheless, here goes my blog post no. 101 . Talking to a colleague, I realized that the 10th anniversary of my blogging has gone past unnoticed. There was a time when I used to post on all blog anniversaries. "All" might be an over-statement. But I did post on first 3 of them. I also realized that I could manage just 100 posts in 10 years. And may be 10 more under the drafts section that are half filled. Some probably just the title to remind me of trips that I should blog about. To my readers and myself. Belated Happy Blogging Anniversary!!

Cool morning breeze and big smiling face of Pras welcomed us at the Tullamarine airport. With all the anxiety about immigration and customs (since we had food items in our baggage) clearance, this was probably the least fussy officials that I have met. Or may be it is the Friday morning effect, already in a weekend mood :) Honestly, my first trip to the United States had a similar zip through experience with the immigration officials on a Friday early morning. Getting all the luggage into Pras' car was an optimization problem. When we started from India, we didnt realise we were carrying so much. In fact, at the airport check-in counter, we were upset that we were way short of our free baggage allowance. The next anxiety was the car seat, whether Varsha would be throw tantrums. We did not take much risk and handed over her favorite "Baba" rhyme video on my Nokia Lumia. Traffic and freeways reminded me of US101 from SFO to Mountain View, apart from the side of the r...

Wishing you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2015. 2014 was "guna-dosha-mishritham" (as they say in Malayalam) a mixed bag of happiness, fun, learning, lots of office work (almost double duty handling two products), lots of time spent in traffic (courtesy customer visit), exciting challenges in getting customer successfully adopt the product that I was supporting, and finally ending with one the products getting shelved, people given pink slips, people from my team moving out to a different business group, people leaving the company on their own and getting to know that a stint in the US is still elusive for another year. Nevertheless, it brought a significant change in my professional life. I now have 3 engineers reporting to me, thus giving me a notional (alas! no financial) promotion. 2015 will bring in the challenges of managing people and learning with them about new products. This year will also enable me to get up to speed on more tools and showcase my strengths of sup...