THE AWESOME TWOSOME.

Beep beep …… beep beep…… beep beep……….. And then I lift up my head and see the alarm ringing on cell phone. I switch it off and lie on bed staring the ceiling preparing myself to get up and go to office. As usual I take my jolly good time to get up, get ready and Go….. and Lo…… I find myself rushing for Infosys Bus near Madhapur. Somehow I manage to get on the Bus and land at Infy. (A briefing on Infosys Hyderabad would be, It looks like a Oasis in Desert, I mean figuratively……. as the area around it is rocky and quite arid and this 100 acres is designed perfectly with some 20 odd 3 storied buildings and lots of trees and one or two springs.. not natural though).

I rush down from the Bus and make it almost first in the queue to get my bag checked as though I am the busiest person at Infy (as a matter of fact I never had project.. and that was just a put up.. to make my way through the crowd) and then walk down the path in a way which would make the utter lazy Cranes think twice about their attitude.

Slow and steady I reach my building. Ping! Goes my swipe and I land up at my floor and then into my cubicle.. to find the AWESOME TWOSOME Ayan and Mahesh already there and giving me a nice smile (which otherwise is sarcastic and means, u graced us with your early presence thank you.. Huh! ).The day always starts and ends with us doing some little research on various things and small POCs - What is gained out of that is -Immense learning.

Briefing of the Main Villains (ahem ahem! Cough cough!)

Ayan - a 6” Bengali guy who considers himself as boss of mainframes and bullies people who doesn’t know it properly and yet are in same stream and in same job band. Someone who loves, eates and worships mainframes as Primitive man did to rain and Sun. J….(Spare me Ayan .. I know after reading this you would send a missile from Edinburgh straight to just my home).

Jokes Apart, he is an Ultra nice and cool guy (leave the fact of Bong origin – no offence meant) .He is one guy whom I immensely respect for his knowledge in mainframes and the ease with which he distributes that .He is a kind who sincerely believes that knowledge grows when shared.
A simple Human being by heart, a nice mentor and friend to be with at Office.

I don’t remember how many times I have turned to him for help when I lost all hopes of debugging or coding. But he with his cool demeanor just turns and smiles.. and with his trademark dialogue Sushree! Tum na.. nahin sudhroge looks at the Green black screen and debugs the code with a ease which anyone would envy.
Boss hats off!.

Me and Ayan just had one or two things in common – one the Satyam Background and our attitude… take life as it comes……….and myriads of things uncommon.
Now the Second One –
Mahesh (Fondly called ‘Butter Milk’ by us) – This guy is some what same years of experience as me.. But always puts me in shame with respect to the level of technical knowledge he has. A very nice and cool person and an avid stock market buff and a big Fan of Butter Milk and had the capacity of drinking gallons of it in a day ( spare my exaggeration).

These two Villains were my constant Companion and cubicle mates in Infosys. We all shared only one thing in common, we all were laterals.
Most of the times we spent was discussing JCL’S,CICS,COBOL,DB2 and fondly called Mahesh Simhampuri simham!( he belonged to a place called Simhampuri in A.P.).

When I entered INFOSYS my team LGMD had only these senior guys in it, I was indeed a bit curious as to how they would be and how would we gel up, but frankly speaking I never had made friends faster then this before. These guys are actually the awesome twosome.
We talked about Books which Mahesh loathed, shares and stock market (which both Ayan and I loathed) …. Mainframes (which we all liked), life.
These two villains with me as an Angel, formed what is called a perfect fairy tale (okay okay… am not an angel as per you both).
The villains tortured me a lot till they got the perfect Techie out of me.

Jokes apart we always had a good time together and when my sweet and nice friends left for Bangalore I really wish we could always have been in same project and Share some more experince at work .Afterall these were my First colleagues and friends at Infosys.

176-CHARLEMONT ROAD-VICARAGE LANE-EAST HAM

While listening to the song, DIL KYA KARE Song from the movie SAALAME ISHQ, a sweet memory from my past just went across my mind and the nostalgia lingered for a short while

I remebered my first international Visit and my Home away from home 176-charlemont road. When I landed in the Land where sun never sets, I never knew where I would stay - just knew the address. Cruising past the tall buildings on both sides, leaving behind the big gardens lined with maple trees after the fall ,I halted in front of this house, which I had only seen in movies or in small pictures .

With a sleep filled eyes I entered into a house with a friend of mine who showed me the room – the owner (who were a srilankan family of 5 consisting of 3 kids and there parents), very sweetly asked me for dinner, but the feeling that I am in London had never sunk in, and sleep had already taken me out of control, I thought of retiring and slept like a log.

I was awoken my friend and when I opened my eyes, I saw a very picturesque surrounding from the window, I then pinched myself to let myself accept that am in London actually. The sweet little room I had got had a nicely draped bed, with the cover hanging low till floor, the floor was of wood and also carpeted. My bed was a little princess’s one and the room had a flowery cupboard in it. The windows had nice furnishing, I really felt for while like a little princess.

With the early morning laziness I went and sat near the window, there was this song playing on my laptop and there was a mist outside with dews on the grass and the trees.
It could either be Wordsworth or Keats or any romantic poet who can aptly describe the exuberance that flew within my veins that moment, but not me.

The owner of the house were sweet and warm people , they kept the spirit of the home as it should be, I hardly realized in few days that I was away from home ,so 136 Charlemont road became my home in few days. I bonded with the kids and they very fondly called me ‘AKKA’.I still remember Uncle giving me his share of crabs as I liked it and aunty cooking vegetarian food at times for me. I still remember the kids become sad for a week and pleading me not to go back. I still remember uncle raising the wine and saying to our dear ‘SUSHREE’, the day before I left. I remember aunty not asking me last week's rent, until I paid myself. The people I stayed with were not rich with the empress seal but were rich from heart. That’s what made 176-charelmont road my home.

In a week’s time I saw snowfall, the exact date being 10th of February, I and my friend stood by the window watching the snow come gushing down the sky as if someone had actually blown cotton lumps in sky, that was my first snowfall experience. I then found beauty in the chill weather too.

What I loved about London at that time was the chill, the mist and the tea. That was the first time I got to know about paid launderettes, wherein we have to wash our own clothes – I was spared from that, we had washing machine at home. When I went around places, few of my friends had to spare a day for washing clothes, this was another gift that 176-charlemont road gave me.

I remember returning from office, with the ipod playing on songs and somehow when this Dil kya kare song played I could relate to this place. When the District Line wound through blackfriars, emerging at whitechappel I could see the mist surrounding the area near west ham, far from the place canary wharf with all its glory stood blinking amongst the Cloud of mist.

To the chill, frozen souls of ours the house always looked as a blessing. Like school kids we used to run towards it and immediately get into its comfortable red and blue welcoming interiors. Our day always ended with piping hot home cooked Indian food and watching nice movies in the little princess room.

I saw the first spring onset in there, watched the days pass by and saw the trees get the foliage back and also the flower on them. I had the best of parties and friends gathering hosted at my home. In the city of strangers I found people who had great warmth.
With a mere 55 pounds a week I got everything that would keep my worries of existence in the city at bay and keep exploring visiting and working with patience.

I still remember the evening when I used to stroll back to home, watching out for jackals who at times made appearances near the garden and also looking at the trees in full bloom , with their red ,pink and white flowers.

As days flew by, and my returning day came close. I had lotsa emotion suddenly playing games with eachother.As I watched them play, I was taken back, and then winner emerged to be the one who felt for the house and the surrounding.

I conclude – My stay at London was very eventful, with the accolades from client, with the responsibility as the delivery head, as a Coordinator, with my strolling across places alone and with friends, with my exploring happiness in lonely evenings, with the love for 136, charlemont road.

I owe the success and the happiness to 176-charlemont road, Vicarage Lane, East Ham – E6 6AQ.

A FRENCH CONNECTION

Tired of the hustles and bustles of corporate life, I and my friend Tanmayee decided to give a 3 days trip to some part of India. I had to travel to Chennai the given weekend to meet my best friend and to save me as well from his scourge ,invited because of not attending his m attending his marriage.

So eventually we selected Pondicherry to be our weekend destination. To our Luck, some of our college friends from Bangalore also agreed to be a part of our trip and thus began our Touré to Pondichéry.


I and Tanmayee reached Pondichéry on Friday evening and checked into one of Guest house of The Shri Aurobindo Ashram. We were not ready to spare a single hour sitting idle in the room, so immediately left the room for a quick stroll to see the places around. My immediate perception of the place was that it’s a small, quiet and a pretty little town. We went around the Ashram area and the Assembly and finally to the sea shore.

The sea has been always a thing of awe to me ever since i was a child, the sight of it always did the same thing to me even after so many years – Awestruck!! And Spellbound!! to its vastness ,Beauty and Power. Sea is Powerful, so powerful that when u are sitting on its shore and watching it, it takes away everything from your mind and leaves behind emptiness and tranquility which is normally not achieved anytime.

Leaving my description of the sea, let’s get ahead with the Touré. The sea shore was lined with guest houses, which were essentially old French buildings , the old light house and the old port( which has become a café now).To us the houses seemed to be like old timeless beauty showing off its grandeur and screaming about its grand history.
In simple words they looked Neat (very neat indeed), with huge windows and small silhouettés and the carved supports just below the roof.

The roads were so clean and laid properly ( I say laid properly as the edges were fine ,without dirt and was of some kind of cement tiles), that my friend joked as to they getting cleaned everyday with Surf excel. Everything looked as if has been placed daintily to make that area. The buildings looked like as if been neatly cutout from cardboard boxes and has been perfectly painted and pasted on the roads by a seasoned artist. This as said to us by a European traveler called Kate from Chelsea London, was the French Architecture. After our small stroll along the beach and the French colonies, we quickly went back to the guest house to receive our friends who had arrived a while earlier.
Everyone got ready and then our gang went to the ashram to have our early lunch (rather very early, lunch was between 11:15 to 12:15).As always said… a gang of girls can never keep silence, me and tanmayee ,for few hours had to keep telling all to maintain silence(as we had arrived earlier and knew the ways of ashram by then). One of them was even scolded by an ashram inmate.

After the pretty simple lunch (which kept us feeling light and dynamic throughout the day) we headed towards Auroville.There was a tour Bus of the Ashram which took us all to Auroville – a small township which was planned and designed by the esteemed Shri Ma.It was her dream, her sight (that there should be a place on earth which no nation can claim as its own and where money was not the Superior thing, where humanity dwelled in its purest essence , living and passing the spirituality to generation) that took the shape of Auroville.Shri Ma was a French lady , who was the Spiritual partner of Shri Aurobindo.
Her imagination, dream was shaped out as the Auroville, a galaxy shaped township which had people from various countries residing in it with perfect peace and harmony.Auroville has two centres, one a geological centre- which is a banyan tree, and the architectural centre - which is the Matrimandir near to the banyan tree. The matrimandir has the world’s largest Crystal, weighing approx. 1 ton placed in its centre.Matrimandir has a very unique architecture, it’s a almost huge spherical structure, whose exterior is covered with golden plates and which has just one aperture in its apex ,wherein the light enters and falls directly on the crystal .This in turns lights up the room ( there is no other source of light) and when one enters into the dome, its completely closed and has nothing in it excepting a crystal in the center. In short it is a temple for meditation. To our Bad luck we were not allowed into it because of some construction work going on in it.

To me Matrimandir seemed to me like sun in between the galaxy, even in its appearance. At a distance of some 300-400 meters besides it was the urn in which soil of 180 countries were put, when foundation of Auroville was laid, two decades ago. All of us stood there for quite a while, taking snaps and looking at the man made beauty and also idling for sometime. We headed back exhausted to the cafeteria of Auroville, we filled ourselves with one the best tasting cakes and chocolate tarts.

Then our tour bus headed back. All of us spent the evening besides the beach. Sitting on Rocks, watching the sunset and then wandering on the streets near the ashram. it was republic day celebration and I suddenly realized that the battery in my camera was spent, I rushed back alone to the guest house to get the batteries .I couldn’t wait for someone else to click the photos as it was republic day celebration and the entire place, the governor house, the legislative assembly and all the places were decorated to its fullest grandeur.

The next day we got up very very early, it was about 5:30 that we were ready to start our journey to the sea shore and watch the rising sun .I, as a matter of fact all of us were thrilled to watch for the very first time ‘sun rising from the sea’. On my way to the shore I watched the early morning mass being held in the church. The prayers were like a symphony to my ears .With the light and fresh early morning breeze on my face and the symphony of the choir i walked towards the sea with a exuberance. Along side I saw many tourist as well as the local French kids, cycling down to the sea. We sat almost half and hour to finally see the Sun rising at the horizon. The sight before the sun rise was awesome and also the sight of the sun rising at the horizon. There were fish trawlers already at the sea and the sun sending its light to the waters, shimmering the waves in its presence made the whole appearance look very scenic and beautiful. For almost half an hour all of us were silent (this is a really big achievement for a gang of girls together) and the only sound we heard was that of waves breaking on the rocks lining the shore and the wind on our face. There cannot be any words that would aptly describe the beauty of what we saw and what we felt.

Getting ahead along with the journey. We had a small breakfast at the sea side café, and to our sheer delight, there were a flutist and a guitarist playing nice music which perfectly complemented the breakfast and the early morning sea – BEAUTIFUL!!.The Tranquility which I was so much searching for was finally achieved in this trip, though for a short while.

Then we headed to a small beach in the distance and had a great time playing along the waves and the beach. In the afternoon we had a great lunch - with good amount of sea food in a hotel overlooking the sea. I had eaten the best of ice creams at the hotel - Ajantha.At 4 pm we headed back to Chennai with silence in heart, sadness of the ended trip and also the hope and dream for another soon to come.

The twist in the tale is that , what we expected to be the end of all the beauty we saw was, just not the prefect climax, the perfect climax lay ahead all packaged and gift wrapped for us by the dear nature and its Lord. We accidentally got into a Bus( as we did not get another Bus – Thanks for that) that takes the By pass road to Chennai and not the sea side road. We had really planned to sleep, and then suddenly something happened. The climate changed to less of sun, more of fog, a nice chillness and to quite much of wind and the bus made its journey meandering through hills lined by small lakes. I was excited and happy to the core, I almost screamed in excitement to friend of mine over phone- Marvelous!!, awesome!!!! And had a bunch of bus people looking at me. It really didn’t bother, as because, we were again thrown into surprises of nature. Nature with all its gracefulness simply said us - Expect the Unexpected!!!.


Summing Up, Pondicherry did show us a lot about its French connection, with its design, with its cosmopolitan crowd (though it was a small place), with the food ( lotsa croissants and cakes which was not really Indian), with the buildings named in French, the ashram and with its Spirit, which was a essentially Indian but with A FRENCH CONNECTION ……

a little of something - Aston in Cumbria

Always wondered how and what blogging is... still wondering till date.....well......experimenting is always a good way to learn new things yourself...... precisely that's what am doing..........

My first blog would be about Aston in Cumbria..........

Aston is a small hamlet in Cumbria , a place in England, where i have spent the summer of 2007.This is where i got this little of something and little of everything ,again.

Few miles drive from London would take one to this lake district of England.On entering Aston one would find oneself to be thrown into the sheer magnificence of nature.The way to hamlet would be shown by a series of winding roads around the hills......Again while travelling through this road you would spot the lush green meadows and the sheep rearing farms in it. It looks from a distance as if some one has decorated the green meadows with large white flowers .With clouds sweeping across the peak of Hills..... it is a feast for the eyes of a tired civilian who craves for beauty among the tall glass and cement structures of the so called human developed beautiful world. Saying this I am not utterly refusing the fact that this human development is not necessary or should be abolished as, because of this development I am off to see the nature in Aston in my AC Car with the Tom Tom (Sat Nav) without which I would have been thrown into vastness of England never returning to my work, which is otherwise my bread and butter.
-----Again the essence of my writing comes in here a little of somethings and everything is essential.

Proceeding with my trip, The Hamlet lies a little distance short of the peak of a hill with a spring turning into a water fall in the center of the hamlet. The hamlet has clusters of two storied and single storied houses (which seems to be like ranches of Victorian era or something out of Sherlock Holmes novel). I am invited by a little Chinese lady (strangely though the inn was owned by a Chinese in UK) into her inn. After the long journey from London I was tired enough to take a nap, but the aura that surrounded the place pushed me off from the inn, to wander through the streets of Aston.

It was about 20:00 hrs , when I started walking up the hill…,which was surrounded by those little beautiful cottages straight from Hansel and Gratel stories. There was a bit of light even at this hour coz the sun sets late in tropic of cancer. But soon it was quite dark. Amidst the cold night and the sound of the gurgling spring…, I suddenly took a look at the sky and was awestruck. Never was the sky so near and clear to me .I could see the vastness of Milky Way and thousands of stars shining as bright as cluster of diamonds. Nothing could be so pleasing to the eyes of a star gazer ....to see so many constellations together on the piece of sky above her.It was AMAZING!!. Felt like capturing every second of beauty with the little possession i had – my camera, but as it is said everything cant be captured by the little human inventions( as nature is superior to all),so captured everything in the little memory of mine.

My heart was not ready to take me back to the inn, but the mind was, as the place was new to me and it was dark. I went back and had the famous FISH and CHIPS (English) dinner and retired to my room still looking at the Moors delimited with FIR trees of Pine species.Don't remember when I slept, but woke up early to fill my stomach and get ready for my trip to the lakes. I was served fresh orange juice with bread and eggs… perfect English Breakfast…….

So again the diversity shows off….. a perfect English hamlet, a perfect inn , a Chinese owner serving English Breakfast , an Indian tourist .

After this the journey was started again , to fall in love with nature and cherish every moment of its grandeur.

- A little of Something and everything – this hamlet and its journey also gave me a little of something, stars, the moors, Meadows, the sheeps, the sound of the Spring,the nice cool breeze ,the chill of night , the perfect breakfast , the bit nostalgic thoughts from my past and a fresh start for my present and future.