Moments

Year 2050 Act 1 - The crowning The FIRST party of India is still controlled by a dynasty. They are true rulers. The family has been controlling the party very well. The Grandma has grown old but her son just couldnt grow up. He kept everybody guessing and never really took the challenge to be the No. 1. He is now nicknamed "Evergreen No. 2". Old age has started showing signs. She had been on too many sick leaves. But she was never ready to sideline her amul baby. The core committee meeting was going on. The next general elections have been declared. The main agenda for today's meeting was to decide who is going to lead the party into the elections. The Grandma was unusually silent today. She seemed to be listening to the arguments but her mind was wandering. Can she hold on for one more election? Will the No. 2 be ready to accept the top position, though he had rejected it this morning at the breakfast table. Suddenly, BANG!!!! It was a thud on the desk. Everybod...

April 6, 2012 The third one in the series was the hottest even though it was the beginning of the summer. It was a summer vacation for two of my cousins who had completed her board exams in March. They planned a Delhi-Agra-Jaipur trip covering 15 days. My wife's cousin (Shruthi) had also finished her exams and wanted to visit us in Delhi. She got along with my uncle and family on what she calls an "Incredulous Journey" to the capital city. You can read the whole of that in her own blog, which she hasnt started yet :) I had planned for the Jaipur trip during the "Good Friday" long weekend so that I can accompany them. There was lot of confusion on who all would join. My wife and mom wanted to visit Jaipur as they hadn't been there before. Dad has been there umpteen number of times, so he was most reluctant for the hot ordeal. My local guardians too had been to Jaipur many times, but they were cajoled to join the party. So finally we had a gang of 12. ...

"A trip to Jaipur in the hot and dry North Indian summer", that is the tag line of all the Jaipur trips that I have been to. The first one was in mid May of 2004, a part of an outing during my MTech, the second one in first week of July of 2006 for a friend's wedding and the third one in the first week of April 2012. All of them were equally interesting, so let me cover all of them here. Disclaimer: This blog post could be too long. May 15, 2004 13 people from our MTech batch went on a training to CEERI, Pilani, Rajasthan. My first Jaipur trip was planned on the first weekend of the training. Jaipur was around 5hrs drive from Pilani. It was not really a straightforward trip. Our training coordinator, Mr Runthala, was very concerned about leaving us, with 5 girls, all alone on a trip. So he agreed to spare his Saturday and come along with us. But the next problem was that he dint want to take us to Jaipur. He wanted to take us to a temple, Salasar Balaji temple whic...

Being a Keralite, everyone would ask me about the tourist destinations in Kerala and my usual reply would be "I havent been to any of the tourist places except Trivandrum" or Thiruvananthapuram as it is called now. I have spent most of my life outside Kerala and visits to the "Gods own country" would be for summer holidays to my ancestral home. The regular visit to Kerala during my summer holidays is what made me love the "Gods own country". So an invitation to the backwaters in Alleppey was something that couldn't be rejected. Alleppey (or Kuttanad - what the whole region is called in folklore) is a unique place on earth. The county is crisscrossed by natural water canals through which the sea water would come inland. The canals essentially created a set of islands which was lush green with paddy fields in the center and coconut trees lined up on the edges. If some islands are not so populated, it would be covered with trees and wild bush...

Wishing my readers a wonderful, happier new year 2013. I dedicate the year 2012 to Dr. Anoop. My close friend. One of my dearest. Yesterday, on the last day of 2012 was his Phd defense. We became friends during the first day of our MTech. Both of us were from Kerala and we stayed in the same hostel at IIT. Anoop was the motivation behind me joining Phd. I cherished the time spent in the labs, discussions - technical and non-technical, innumerable holiday trips, an excellent 15 day trek and many more. He was the one who kept me going at times of depression. But eventually I got bored of research and joined a job, converting to part-time Phd. Even then Anoop was the motivation for me going to IIT and continuing research. When job became more interesting and rewarding than research, I decided to say good-bye to IIT. I am glad that Anoop continued it with full rigour and came out with flying colors. Three cheers for Dr. Anoop C. Nair!!!

"A trip that many of us wanted but was approved at the last moment, yet turning out to be unique" That's how I would describe this trip in short. My friend and family was visiting us in Bangalore and would be here for a week. But no holidays in the week meant there was only one day - Saturday - for any outing to be planned. My friend's family had just wound up their 10 day pilgrimage and sight seeing trip. A week long break gave them energy and enthusiasm to venture out again for a day's trip. Amritanshu's dad was the most interested in seeing Mysore which was the captial of erstwhile Mysore Maharaja. My mom had also not been to Mysore. So she prompted me to check out the options. Taking up few seats in a one-day sightseeing tour with any tour operator was the first choice. But it was voted out as it meant going to Majestic early in the morning to catch the bus. Also the bus would drop us back at Majestic well past midnight and it would be difficult to r...

Keeping up with my promise of travelogues, here I start the first of the series and most recent one. Coincidentally it is another of "My First" series. Though I had started driving a car almost a year and a half back, I never got a chance to take it for a long drive. Mainly due to reluctance and fear from wife/parents, I was held back in indulging in this pleasure. Earlier I had a Tata Nano which added to the apprehension of being a small car incapable of doing long drives. Coming to Bangalore and owning a Toyota Etios Liva gave me a glimpse of the long drive that I could embark upon. My hometown is 450kms from here and many of my acquaintances have done a road trip from Bangalore to Palakkad. Even my dad has done it many times. Plans for driving down to Palakkad had been on the cards but they were thwarted by fate. So when I got a chance of taking my friend's family to Mysore, I grabbed the opportunity. Saturday morning 6AM was fixed for departure. Driver - only m...