Good Times..

It was one of those lazy saturday afternoons, when we were hanging around in 101. We hadnt been up to any madness for a few week's, so I guess everyone was a little edgy.. Santhu show's up smoking a cigarette.. "Edaa Machaanmaare.. let's do something .. Engottengilum Pokaam " .. Tinu as usual had something important to do in office ( which we later found out to be - reading a novel ) .. and Sachin T had one of his million cousin's in town.. Hari had to do something creative once in a while in his office to justify his salary so he too had to go to work.. and George had to go for his "Meet New Girl's practice" a.k.a. "Church Music Practice" in in Koramangala Methodist church... That left me Pills Santhu and Saju. After some deliberation we decided to go on a loong pending trip to Coorg..

By the time we struggled past the bangalore traffic to reach mysore road it was half past seven ... After some time of listening and screaming to " Kehdoo Tumhein , ya chup rahoon - I Just want to be close to you" remix, Pill's was like - "Dudes.. lets hit a Dhaba .. you know ... ". Ya we knew. Pill's had to maintain his 135 Kg Figure, and needed enough food to scare off a waitor in a decent restaurant.. We took the next drive in Dhaba and settled down int one of the many hut's there.. After a lot of Roti's, Chicken, Dal Fry , two bottle's of Rum, and a lot talk about times in PESIT college, the time was 12:30 in the night. Perfect time to start.. we should be reaching coorg by morning .. Then Saju said " Da I will drive" .. Everyone froze.. Saju normally used to drive in MG Road at 100 Kmph in the night. With a few peg's he can very well do 100 mph in Times Square, not to talk of all the collateral damage. Anyways everyone got into car and Pills and santhu slept off.. I pretended to sleep. So like any other world class performer, without an audience, saju decided not to try any of his Schumi trick's and we approached coorg safely ..

We reached Madikeri in the wee hours of the morning , and it was quite misty .. and and we checked into a hotel next to the bus stand. hit the bed, but were up by 8:00... Showered , and went out to a udipi restaurant to have breakfast. Pil's as usual had Three Masala Dosa's and Two Puri Palliya's. After that we went to the nearest Bar and bought outselves our ration's of Rum for the day. " What are the good places around here Dude's." Saju asked. I had been to Coorg before, so I suggested going to Abbey Fall's. We reached the fall's and found ourselves along with quite a few tourists. " Well where to now" Santhu asked. Pill's was reading a sign at the extreme end of the bridge over the base of the waterfall" It read " Tresspassers will be prosecuted". Pill's said, "I know where to go... " .. We started walking into the dense jungle with hardly any space in between and after an hour of trekking landed up at the top of the waterfall. With Rum keeping the cold out, we crossed the water and trekked through the forest till we ended up on a road. Then we followed the road and reached our car, singing "I just want to be close to you " all the way for some mysterious reason. We then drove back to our hotel and hit the Bar.

Four glasses came together in cheer's, and Pill's asked santhu "Whats that on your hand? "...
Santhu: " Looks like a worm"
Pill's: "Edaa thats a leech.. "
Santhu: "Man I feel something in my pants too"
Me: "Me too"

we all ran to the bathroom and stripped down to our underwear. Me Saju and Santhu had10, 12 and 15 leeches on us respectively. The hotel waitors got us salt which we put on the leeches and got rid of them. Somehow Pill's didnt have a single Leech. I guess they got scared ;-) .. Well after this episode we went to our room and Saju had a good time scaring Santhu " Man, those leeches must have laid egg's in your underwear and they will hatch when you wear them again and bite you" Santhu was paranoid and refused to wear anything for the next couple of hours. In the end we got him to be presentable dressed, got into our car's and headed back for home. On the way we dropped in to Cauvery Nisargadham, on the way back to Bangalore. Thus ended our small good time trip ..

Have you seen the movie "There's something about Mary", where all the dudes fall over each other in love with Cameron Diaz . Bangalore is a city that reminds one of something like that. Not that there aren't hard core city lovers elsewhere. But there still is something about Bangalore that makes people fall in love with it. TheBritish, then the Indian Army and Air force, then all the student's who flocked to the many schools and colleges in the city from other states and countries, and finally the tech guru's from Microsoft to Oracle to SAP and our very own Infosys, Wipro and TCS. Everyone who came, decided to stay on. Well .. so much that now the traffic in the city would put Istanbul to shame.

Many of my good times were spent in this city. I was born here, but had to move back to kerala cos my dad was getting a transfer. I cried like a little baby when we shifted. Well as fate would have it, I got an offer from Infosys, and I ended up back in the city again, and it was like falling in love all over again.


I dont know what it the attraction of Bangalore but I guess it could be a combination or stuff like -

The climate .. those mist covered winters and slightly warm summer's. Though all the vehicles now have caused the temperature to go up, its still one of the best in the country.

Waking up to cold morning's and having tea at an Udupi or Shanti Sagar ( if you are a bachelor )..

Breakfast at Koshy's..

Strolling through Cubbon part while eating the Salted Mangoes sold outside...

Shopping in Commercial Street ... you get all the stuff there

Bargaining in Gandhi Bazaar.. you get more stuff there at a lesser price if you can bargain..

Hanging out at Cool Joint Jayanagar.. eat one of the million Pav Bhaji's sold there every year..

Lunch at Ebony in the Barton Center.. Good view of the city ..

Strolling around Brigades and M.G window shopping ..

Amazing Jumbo burgers at Indiana's Fast food..

Movie at Rex or Symphony ..

Midnight Dinner at Empire after the movie ..

Hitting Spinns or The Club on Saturday to shake a leg ... Meet some pretty girls..

Listen to good music and sip beer in Purple Haze on Sunday ..

Once in a while go to Peecos the greatest Pub of them all ...

The Chaat waala's and Sugar Cane juicewala's who are there on every other intersection.

Going to Chowdiah Hall to catch screening's of classics ...

Going to the art galleries ..

Going for Freedom Jam on August 15th ..

Going for Vasantha Habba every year.. Losing the way on the way there ..

Taking a Long Weekend break to Goa for a .. Come back and take sick leave the next day..

Celebrate all the festivals of India .. Ugadi , Christmas, Diwali, Onam, etc etc ...

Going around to all friend's house's and coloring everyone for for Holi ..

Seeing the Air show at Yelahanka Air force base every year..

Going to Infant Jesus Church Viveknagar, on thursdays

Going to St Peter's Church, residency road, for christmas ..

Going to National Market to by the next version of Microsofts Operating system on a pirated DVD :-) ..

Sneaking to the Hosur road cemetary at night and scaring your friend once you are inside..

Having Masala Dosa at Sri Krishna's Cafe in Koramangala..

Occasionally hitting the Underground disc in Le Meridian..

College going dude's, Hanging around Mahaveer Jain college to show off their Bike's ..

Eating at "The Only Place" ..

Waiting at Cantonment Railway Station to pick up a friend..


Dont know what it is dudes, but there sure is something about Bangalore that makes you fall in love with it... :-) ..

I was remembering some of the good times of the past few years in the last posts, but i guess none of the good times would have been possible without many of my friends. I just feel like telling a big Thank You to all of them for being around in this world and making it a better place.

Thank you Major Saab for all those crazy debates on car's, engines, petrol and diesel, we had and also for being my closest buddy.

Thank you Pills for all those times which I remember and all those times which i dont (and i think neither do you) because we were too drunk. :-)

Thank you Jaadu for for that amazing bike ride we had from Dr Ananthans house back home.. and so many more races we had ..

Thank you 'Cow' George for being explosive ( grenade ) material as well as the fine person you are :-)..

Thank you "Anda" for winning every single cricket match against me as captain during the 10th vacation classes which taught me to lose gracefully..

Thank you Anu for teaching me the most valuable lesson of life..

Thank you Oommen for saving my life on the Railway bridge ( I am sure you dont remember
that though ) :-) ..

Thank you Kabish for giving the best piece of advice possible....

Thank you Deeps for giving all those notes during engineering so that we could mug up and pass the exam.. :-)

Thank you Kuttappan for explaining all those notes to me so that I could actually pass :-) ..

Thank you PM for all those trips to Vagamon the awesome pics you took ...

Thank you Chacko Sir for teaching me to use my imagination in mathematics..

Thank you Jose and Amel for all those cricket matches we played at your home..

Thank you Hari for all those revelations on Osho ideas of sex ;-) .. and for showing me how sheer determination works..

Thank you Jimmy for all the PJ's that we screamed at but made life fun at 101..

Thank you for the Nimmo for the exclusive Nimmo Lingo - Memory Collapsed, Scoorching Cold ... Chilling Hot etc etc ..

Thank you Balaji for being our Banni :-)...

Thank you AJ and Kochu's for being brother's to me..

There are so many more to thank but if I continue this page will become unreadable. So Thanks to everyone.. Mazel Tov....:-)

'The word "Bench" in indian software services lingo refer's to a person's state while waiting for a client project. For all practical purposes, during this period the employee has to come to office by the last available bus, have as many tea's as possible from the dreadful vending machine , unleash creativity in the form of mail chain's, and enter into the most bizzare discussions on the bulletin board that would put Freud to shame. All this while waiting for the clock to strike five so that he can catch the first available bus back home.

But, for a small gang of guys and girls in the infy december 2000 batch, the word "bench" took on a different meaning. Outside the heritage block ( infosys's first building, in the e-city campus in Bangalore), there is a basketball court next to which there were two "Benches" painted in dull green. Most of the gang's "bench" period in infy used to be spent on these benches, talking about anything under the sun.

The first character, Jop's "The Islander" as he used to be called in our team actually came from Vypin Island near Cochin. Jops is a hard core mechanical engineer and would have been happy on a ship sailing around the world, stopping at exotic port's and having a nice time. He ends up in infy due to certain heart related, 'reasons' which will be disclosed later. He has made one important discovery on the bench .. Jops is a Catholic and is not new to the church heirarchy and the politics that go on behind the scenes.. when topics on the bench drift in that direction, he would invariably say "Man, all these priests are con artists. Look at the amount of money they make!!." ..... Plop !! .. Jops can feel a warm fluid slowly seeping into his shirt.. Everyone looks up and sees a crow sitting on the tree looking at Jops and i dont know if crows can technically smile but it sure looked as though it were smiling. over a period of time, the crow keeps up its attacks and somehow seems to have an affinity for Jops.. in the end it suddenly strikes Jops.. He had crow shit on his shirt, whenever he used to curse the catholic church .. Jops is like .. " Dude the crow must be catholic !!" .. We got convinced that the crow was sent by powers unknown to us and decided not to comment on the catholic church when the crow was around ..


The second character - Vattu ... literally means "Crazy" in Mallu .. and thea fact that she used to be called that in college too reinforced our belief that she needs to go to the shrink .. A very bubbly person.. she would say "Hi Bhaiyya how are you !!" to everyone in infy from the security at the gate to Narayana murthy .. Our first day in infy was actually in Reddy building's koramangala. We were all wondering how we are going to pass all the exams in infy training. The opening statement from our batch owner was clear " In college you paid to study .. here we pay you to study .. so take it damn seriously " .. But Vattu is oblivious to all this and is wondering where all the handsome hunks she had heard ,about, were .. By lunch she is totally frustrated..She tells me and Jop's..

Vattu:" Yaar , what a shame .. Not a single good looking guy in our batch.. I am depressed" ..
Me: .. "What are you talking about. What about all these guys standing here"
Vattu: "Who ?? Where ??"
Me :"Well, Me and Jops .. for example "
Vattu: [girlie giggle ] Jops looks too babyfaced and you are black..
Me : I thought the "D" in TDH stands for "Dark"
Vattu:[Sarcasm] the color of coal is not "Dark" .. its called "Black". and Black men cannot be trusted.. They are always up to some evil. See hindi movies for proof. 90 % of the rapists are black.
Me: You are calling me a rapist now !! ??
Vattu: No, absolutely not. Its just that you have a higher probability of becoming one ..:-)
Me: Holy $#^%$$#

That moment i decided to marry this girl and eventually i did.. She still doesnt like black men though .. she just moved me to the "Not so black to be considered a rapist" category.

Vattu and Me ..






















The next character on the bench is Bins ... my friend since school days, is a very lively character and makes the gang complete. She also chips in on the bench with her views.. she is the only one who had some work during those times though .. Bin's is thin as a pencil and we used to feel she could potentially be blown away in a strong wind.. Bin's and Vattu also used to be members of the famed BTM Gang.. A gang of around 50 guys and gals who used to stay in the BTM area.. Bin's and vattu were our bridge to the rest of the batch , and used to keep us updated ( without our choice :-) ) on all the latest relationship's, breakup's hot gossips etc etc..
I remember one incident where Jop's inadvertently makes a statement that actually blow's the whole gang away, but i really cant pen it down here. Gang members would remember for sure :-) ..


Next is Ikkaa .. the "perfect" man ... every day at least once he asks Jop's

Ikka: " Dont i have the perfect height 5 ft 11' ??"
Jops: "Yes"
Ikka: " Dont i have the perfect weight ??"
Jops: "Yes"
Ikka: " Dont i have the perfect hair"
Jops: "Yes"
Ikka: " Dont i have the perfect mooch"
Jops: "Well .. ahem .. Yes"
Ikka:"Then why dont I have a girlfriend where all other A$$#@!#$ out there have !! "

Ikka is perfect in the way he walks, talks, deals etc etc .. and the situation described above changed with time and he used to hang around "St John's" quite a lot ;-). Since he is married now, i shall not comment further on his girlfriends.. ;-) .. but we had real good times together..Especially in our trip to Shivanasamudram and Thalakkad.. Vattu still has a crush for him i think.. She used to call him "Ikkaaa .. Biwi ye ittittu poyoo ".. whenever he used to leave us and go.. also she still likes his driving to mine.. Fate has it that he is my neighbour in bangalore now.. :-) .."

Ikkaa for you ..