I spent a total of about 5 days in Chennai and there was nothing that reminded me about the 10 years that I had spent there in a hostel. I was desperately hoping that at least the railway station would seem familiar. So while coming back I approached the station with a lot of expectations. But, nothing. It seemed like any other station in India and nothing like the station to which I frequented to for atleast 4 times a year for those 10 years.

The only place that brought back memories (just a little) was the college canteen of my sis’s college. It had the typical blue pest-o-flash in every other corner, the tumblers and other utensils arranged to form pyramids all along the canteen , curd rice being served in banana leaf and the awesome sambar that tasted just like my school mess which I miss so much now.

Out of the frying-pan into the fire. This adage very aptly applies to my trip to Nagpur from Chennai. If Chennai was hot, Nagpur is burning. Its 48 degrees here. I wonder how people manage to go out for work. I stepped out of my home at 6:00 in the evening (for the first time during the day) and had to run inside again for the fear of being boiled alive.
Have done a lot of surfing today after a long long time. Am looking forward to going back to work next week :)

So here I am in Chennai trying to beat the heat but failing miserably.

First and the foremost, I want to mention my first time ride in the low cost airline Air Deccan. I was quite apprehensive when I started from home to the airport. I had heard plenty of rumours like the Air Deccan flights always got delayed and that the window would open sometimes midair (hehehe). The simple printout which was the ticket didn’t help either. So, I had geared myself for some really nasty surprises. However, contrary to my apprehensions, everything was pretty smooth. Okay, so what if they don’t have some fancy check-in counters. Who wants these fancy things if we get to travel in a plane and also pay less. I strongly recommend taking your own food for the journey as the food that they serve is something next to pathetic. Anyways, all said and done, I think low cost Airlines are here to stay and I hope some more airlines like Air Deccan, Spicejet make an entry to make air travel affordable and comfortable for us.

What made the flight even more interesting is the cool bald dude who sat beside me… :)

So I am back to Chennai after about 8 years and everything is different. Okay, the summer is the same and we have to literally hibernate during the day. I can still manage to pronounce quite a few names of places in the first go like Nungampakkam. There is a place here with the name Butt (pun intended). But everything else is pretty different. Something that baffles me is the size of hoardings here. They are HUGE.

I would love to go to my School but I get it that its on the other side of town… So I guess I will have to skip the school plan.

One thing I liked about Chennai in particular is the way they have maintained the beaches here. All along the beach, they have some really beautiful resorts …some private and some open to public. Yesterday we went to one such resort, the MGM Beach resort and it was really beautiful. Something like the ones in Phuket. They have very clean beaches, awesome beachside restaurants. Beautiful cottages…and everything was booked solid for the next 3 weeks. :(

Will write more about my trip probably tomorrow once I am again in the hibernating mode.

Met Ami outside the SEEPZ gate just by chance today. Decided to meet with Abishek and her for lunch. And when I finally reached Tunga Paradise, was surprised with the entire gang from Datamatics :) Met everyone after about 1.5 years. Although I had worked in my previous organization only for 3 months, the crowd there was very young and lively and we got along pretty well there.

Had a nice time recalling all those incidents from my early days in mumbai. My first train ride all alone ( my freinds had promised to call the police in case I didn't report for work the next day ;) My refusing to get on a crowded bus, my first ride on a double decker bus with me sitting on the first seat on the top floor and calling up all my Delhi friends and telling them about it :), giving lift to abput 7-8 people in the car that came to pick me up from office everyday before I revolted and finally decided it was high time I started using the public transport.

Ami and Abhishek have both gotten inot the IIM's, ahmedabad and calcutta respectively. I wish I had stayed there and going by the record, wud have managed to get into one of the IIMs ;0)


Finally, I am leaving for my 2 week trip to Chennai to meet my newly married sis and jiju. Will meet my fav cousin too, so am looking forward to some awesome days.

Well, cudn't keep up the promise of posting everyday. The training plan died a premature death. Before I cud begin the third day of training, I was called away for an assignment with my previous boss who after 8 months of seperation ;) still can't seem to do without me. Thank god that the assigment lasts only till tommorrow.

Just completed reading the book "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. This book is the author's first book and he also happens to be a doctor which I think is pretty cool. The book is pretty amazing in the detail to which the author has gone in his descriptions. Very sheepishly, I now accept the fact that there was so little about Iran that I knew before reading this book.

There was one time when I too aspired to be a writer. But going by the way I write this blog, I should be ashamed of even thinking of it. :) I am consoling myself with the fact that I am more of a storyteller than a storywriter. My expressions do most of the talking.

Now that I think of it, I have aspired to be many things. While my house was getting constructed, I aspired to be a construction worker. :) I must have been in 7th std then. I also wanted to be a doctor, athelete, swimmer, a painter but among all this confusion "the constrution worker" thought was pretty serious. :) All my childhood games had a special role for this person, though the only thing this character wud do was go to the construction site ( after a long walk) and eat and then come back home :)

My landlord very discreetly informed me this weekend that they planned to sell the house. So the house hunting days are back again. It seems a little comforting to know that the neighbors are planning to give away their house for rent in a few months. The entire weekend went by wondering where were we going to put up for the 2-3 months. And to add to the despair, the landlady kept getting prospective buyers to the house the entire weekend. Finally, had to run off to my cousin’s place to have some piece of mind.

I am in a training this whole week. This week included, I will be away from office for 3 whole weeks. One week of training and 2 weeks of holidays J. As far as the training goes, all I can say is I am back to the days of ITP where we would dim the lights of the room and doze off while the faculty blabbered on. Only that, this time, new entertainment methods are being tried and tested. For example, blogging ( yes I am in the training room rite now), smsing, reading online newspapers, and lastly, reading novels surreptitiously.In fact, I plan to blog everyday this week. At least, I promise to will make an honest attempt this time