Good Times..

This was the statement Shekhar Kapoor gave when he was trying to describe the character of Sunil in "Kabhi Haan Kabhin Naa" ..

When you look back at a so called ordinary life, we sometimes realise that it is those ordinary moments that make it so special.. Am I getting a little too philosophical.. Well..

One incident I remember is when my uncle came from the US to visit us. I was studying in 9th standard at that time. The only cycles available in india till that time were BSA SLR's and Hero ( Valiya Cycle ) .. The new cycle that had come on the market was "Street Cat"... with a straight handle.. like those cool BMX cycles you used to hear stories about from gulf returnee kid's. Only one Street Cat was sold in my home town of Chengannur and that was owned by a friend of mine. His name was Rajiv a.k.a "Motta". The whole school (including me) used to drool over his bike during the lunch break.. My uncle had come from the US of A and stayed at our house for one night. My school was 3 Kilometers away and I used to walk to it every day. My cycle ( a BSA SLR that I got after many years of pleading ) had been stolen a year ago when I went to church ( of all the places ). I could go in the morning's with my dad as my school was on the way to his office, but he used to go at 7:30 in the morning ( the only person in the kerala state electricity board who used to go that early ) and I didnt want to go at that time cos no one would be there in school at that time. That day when my uncle was there My dad went late.. It was time for me to go to school, so I called out to everyone " I am going to school ... Byeee " .. My dad ( I dont know if he was trying to show a little over concern in front of my uncle) said " I will drop you .." .. My uncle asked " How far is school .. and how do you go " . I said " Three Km's and I walk " .. After 20 years in the US, I guess my uncle found that a bit shocking.. Anyways, Dad dropped me to school that day , but when i came back , I saw that everyone was ready to go our the took out our old car ( Our old fiat ). I thought we were going to have masala dosa from Hotel Anu in chengannur, but the car stopped in front of Central Cycle store. My uncle asked me which cycle I wanted.. I was totally zapped. The cost of a Street cat was Rs 1600. I held my breath and pointed to the Street Cat. The shopkeeper told the price and my uncle did some mental calculcation and said "60 Dollars.. thats it..!! " ( 1 Dollar was around 23 bucks at that time) .. I got my cycle, and overnight became the envy of the whole school.. No other Bike or car for that matter gave me so much pride in riding till now.. Now Rs 1600 might seem ordinary, but I know how special it was for me.. :-) ..

This post is under editing .. So pls read with discretion .. or read later.. everything is arranged in the order it came to my head..

On August 20th 2000, Nine of us batchmates stepped onto theMadras Central Railway station platform. Balaji a.k.a Banni was coming back to his home town and the remaining eight were scheduled to join our first job, the very next day...

After seeing Alaipayuthey ( Saathiya's Tamil original ) in Bangalore, a few month's ago , I was very much looking forward to get on the metro .. and experience the magic of suburban train travel in India. We took the train from Chennai Central to Pallavaram where Banni's sprawling house was. The ride was good and I was hanging out of the door all the time. The next day we did not get lucky to get on the train, and had to take the bus to office. There we discovered that our dear HR manager who had hired us had completely forgotten about us arriving and had left for Malaysia. The backup manager was a Mallu and was like " I have no interest interest in getting you in till LP is back, but anyways since you have come, you can go and fill those form's. I will check up with her in between"..

We got into the job during the course of the week and I found that suburban train travel during weekday's was not like it was shown in Alaipayuthey ( Saathiya ) .. Probably they shot during the weekend's. But it was exciting neverthless. The number of people being transported using the system was mind boggling. And you dont have to go to Disneyland to experience fantastic thrill's. Anyway's a week went by and we were playing card's till the wee hours of the morning every day. By friday, we decided that we should find a house before Banni's Mom kick's us out ( Aunty with her hospitality told us that we could stay on if we needed though) . Searching for a house, we quickly discovered that a group of 8 Bachelor's are untouchable's in Chennai. You stay touchable till you are max a group of 3 -4 . House owner's used to go

" Ayoo Ette Bachelor's a .. Aandavaa .. illa veedu kodukke maatte.. Maximum Moonne pere " ..


" Eight Bachelor's .. My god.. no chance.. maximum three guy's "

after a lot of searching we finally met up with M, whom I would descibe as a bachelor tenant's dream.. Me and Manu had gone to meet her for the first time in a posh residential area near Mylapore.

Us: "Aunty there are eight of us. Is that a problem."
M: "I dont care if there are fifty of you there as long as you guy's can adjust. "
Us: "What's would be the deposit.."
M: "One Month's rent. I dont know why these houseowner's fleece their tenant's by taking 10 month's rent."

This was especially a relief for us as there were country fellow's like Thakidi with us who came with 500 bucks for house rent, house deposit and one month's food and stay in chennai.

Us: "Can we see the place."
M : "Sure .. here is the key .. its in Adyar, next to the signal. Its in Dev Apartments. Opposite to the Traffic Jam Restaurant. You cant miss it. If you like it, stay on. Just send me the rent. I have a son your age too , so i know how bachelor's can be. Pls do not make too much noise and have the neighbours call me. I hope I can trust you guy's"

Thus we found Dev Apartments, our abode for the next few months. After getting our house, work at office got into full swing. Our job was to give broadband internet connection's at home's and corporates. With the Dot com boom our schedules were always full and our target's were ever increasing. We went to all corner's of chennai, from the posh residential area's of Alwarpet and Annanagar, to shady places near the Chennai Port. Many incidences happened during these times :-) ..

I specially remember me and SK walking near Stella Maris college to a client's place, with cable in our hand's. One girl come's up and ask's us " Hey are you from the cable company. I am not able to get any channel's in my house ( next to the college )" .. Me and SK looked at each other. " Cable repairmen ?? " we are electronic's engineer's .. SK had a full bottle of rum that day. " I didnt study four years of engineering to become a cable guy" ... The news of our batchmates getting campus training in Infy , Wipro and Satyam amongst Golf courses, and five star treatment, didnt do our ego's any good. We consoled ourselves saying that the beginning of all big thing's are small.


Apart from the small downfall's life was made better by some great character's in office. I truly felt like Dilbert. There was Gun's .. the V.P, with his dumber than a blonde secretary Dolly .. Every day he used to come out of his cabin at precisely 11 A.M with a fantastic unrealistic idea to solve all our problems ,

Gun's " Guys .. I have a great idea to solve all operation's problem's. Let's have G Shiva head the Hub Operations and do some restructuring"

Manager Mr Joshi:" Sir there is a small
problem there. If you havent noticed, G Shiva left the company last week"

Gun's: " Ohh .. I didnt know that .. "

and he used to go back to his cabin .. in hibernation till next morning, for the next crackpot idea.


The funniest part used to be in the basement with customer support.. Thats where I met Ranjith, a.k.a killsbylook. I know only one guy who can talk on four different phone's , chat to 10 guys' and also chit chat with you at the same time. Some of the customer call's were quite hilarious. There were also the two girl's from Palakkad Engg College, S & S.. Also there was Manish from Sale's .. All of us used to have a pretty good time...


Evening's used to be at the Besantnagar beach taking in the cool breeze, and walking back in the night to our apartment. I remember, after a month of work, we got our first salary and ATM card's. No one knew how to use them, and we didnt want to make ourselve's look like fools in the already crowded HDFC ATM counter's. There were only a handful those at that time. Me and SK volunteered and took the bike at 12 in the night to the ATM in Besantnagar. after half an hour of experimenting, we figured out the process of withdrawing money from the ATM and went home with instruction's for other's and crisp hundred rupee note's from our first salary. We felt so proud of ourselves.

During this time, Banni used to be a source of unlimited entertainment. His joining date in Wipro was in november and he was in chennai. He used to come in with his Nokia a.k.a "Nokio" ( Means "have you seen" in mallu ) .. in those times when cell phone's were a rarity. We have never seen him use the phone for anything other than play snake. Bikku and Reju too joined us after some time . There was a good looking girl in the apartment complex next to us, and she used to "give the look" .. and everyone used to fall over each other trying to impress her in one way or ther other.

One person who joined us later, of whom we were fairy skeptical, but later came to know as a wonderful person , and who became a very good friend of mine is Zach. Zach had his unique flavour of Tamil which only he understood. For example for getting directions

Zach " Annaaa Santhome Enge Ponge "
Chennai Guy: " Nee Enne pesrathe .. poriyaathe "
Me : " Anna Santhome pokathake vazhi enna enne chodikkare "
Chennai Guy:" Okk .. ithe cathedral road, straight aa poyidungo marina beach varathe. ange nne right eduthe straught aa poyidungo .. Santhome ange thaane"
Zach: after we left " Edaa , ee Enge Ponge enne vechaal evide pokunne enne alle" ( Doesnt Enge Ponge Mean how to get there )
Me: " Athe nee avidoonne padhichu" ( Where did you learn that from)
Zach:" Njan ange assume cheythe" ( I assumed it )
Me:" Nee aaneda engineer.. Ellaam assume cheythonam" ( Now you are a true engineer. Keep assuming everything )

Zach used to be a tip top in his dressing and mannerism's most of the time, bordering on being snooty. A typical Thiruvalla achayan, he used to only eat from the best restaurants. But after a few week's, financial burden's caused him too to come down to our position. Me and Zach went to the thattu kada opposite our house. What ensued was one of the funniest episodes i have ever seen in my life, which has to seen get it completely. Zach wanted a Bull's Eye Egg, and the thattu kada guy had never heard of Bull's eye.. after fifteen minutes of a formally dressed Zach, showing all antic's possible to demonstrate, how a bull's eye is prepared, the thattu kada guy finally say's "Ooooo .. Aaaa Boi .. sheri no problem".. we were left wondering what is he going to make... it took 15 more minutes for us to discover that what the guys means by "Aaa Boi " is actually "Half Boil" , which is in fact Bull's Eye .. That was when Zach heaved a sigh of relief.

Major Saab also used to stay with us at that time had is to-be Biwi in Chennai. She was studying in the NIIT Next door to us. So from office, any customer visit's to adyar used to be handled by him for a while. And he used to go to her cousins place in chennai to have good food, and then gloat about it when he was back.

That was a time when we discovered the virtues of Yahoo chat.. all of us used to login from different hub's in the city, and conf .. Food was mainly from Traffic Jam, SaravanaBhavan, or Run's in Adyar. Once in a while we used to treat ourselves to the delicious Pizza at Adyar Bakery

Those time's were pretty fun..

I dont know whether to categorise this post as a Good Times Post.. but looking back I can definitely say that these event's have helped me see life in a better perspective. So I would like to share this here though I mostly put fun stuff in this blog. This post triggered off when I recently saw Mahesh Bhat's movie "Woh Lamhe" where he put his real life affair with a paranoid schizophrenic Parveen Babi on celluliod.

Q is a person very close to me. She has schizophrenia. Initially I found it very difficult to accept that Q , a personI knew as cheerful and lively, to have "voices in her head". Doctor's usually say that in the case of Schizophrenia, more treatment is given to people around the patient rather than the patient herself. This process is very difficult for the people around the patient because you have to accept a reality which all your senses dont conform to. After a long period of gong through this, I ended up facing a question of what is reality anyways?? . Do we have a right to tell that a person is nut's, when the person can hear a voice as clear as we do when we heard Martin Luther King go " I have a dream .. " .. Does the collective reality of the so called sane world supersede the individual reality of a person.. Now let me come to the next important thing when we talk about schizophrenia.. What is love People talk about love all day long, and say that love is about caring, understanding etc etc . Ask Karan Johar and you will get so many definitions of love than you can't handle. But my experience has made me understand that there is a love that even trancend's different world's and realities and is probably the only cure for Schizophrenia.

Ok, I am being mysterious here. so let me give an example. Supose you love someone very dearly. When you say that you love that person. what do you mean. Is it the way the person looks, act's , care's etc etc .. Well I will completely agree with you. That is also part of love.. Only a idiot would state love as some hazy cloud in the middle of Utopia, which is ununderstandable and mysterious..... But let's get deeper. Suppose the person you love the most in the world, comes and tell's you that in the morning that she can see the GoldenGate bridge while looking out of the window, and when you check, its the same old lawn. Hmmm .. When she persist's that she can see the bridge, you would obviously take her to a Psychiatrist because that's where you take people who talk about stuff that arent there.. ( In that case all the politician's should be in a mental asylum i guess ) ... . The Psychiatrist invariably, gives her thought control pill's that reduces her perception of the "other world" but unfortunately of also of this world!! .. Ya thats the best all thosed blood sucking Pharma companies could do so far.. You realise over some time that with these drug's, thougt you have reduced the symptom's of the so called insanity and releived you of a lot of inconvenience in front of the public, you have also partially killed the person you knew and loved.. You consult with the Doc again and if the Doc is good, he will tell you reality.. " Dear R .. This is incurable.. This lady can hear what she is saying as clearly as you can hear me" .. What would you do .. show more doctor's .. ?? .. you can do that for year's and keep telling yourself that there is hope.. This is the moment of truth. You have to decide whether you love this person or not... You can choose to keep this person as a vegetable with you out of sight of the world for the rest of the person's life.. I have seen love reach out to see the other person's world.. Ultimately if you want the person you love back, you will have to see that person's reality too.. That's the only thing that will allow the loved one to cope up with two realities and ignore the one that she know's you are seeing just for her. Life wont be easy, but I can tell you that taking the tough route always makes you realise that it was a better choice in the end. If God forbid something like this happen's to your loved one, do not reject the person or try to violently fight it. The best way is to reach out and accept the other person's reality too.

Rgds
Robs

This is about the time when Cathy came to the Garden City. . Much like the character in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Height's, Cathy is elegant and inspiring, and it was a pretty nice time with me Cathy and P.

In the initial meeting's I was trying to impress Cathy and took the " I Love animal's .... " line ..

Me: " Animal's are real cute.. In my Mom's house there are so many animal's .. There are Cats, Dog's, Cow's, Goats, Goose, Turkey's, Pigeon's, Rabbit's Hare's .. etc etc (Thats true for the record ) ... When I settle down, I will have at least a nice cute little goat in my house along with my dog.. I adore Aattinkuttikal ( kid goat ) "

Cathy: " That sounds nice .. I hope you do .. "

Well things would have been fine, and we went on to other "Blah Blah Blah " .. In the evening I took Cathy out to dinner and of all the things on the menu, without thinking I ordered Lamb Chops.. Cathy patiently waited till half way into her vegan meal, and then said..

Cathy : "Now I know why you need a nice cute little goat in your house when you settle .. So that you eat the poor thing when you want.. You A$$#@!# .. Now dont give me any crap about animal's "

I actually liked goat's, but didnt do too much of introspection of my liking. I was probably talking more that I actually felt inside... But I knew Cathy would have none of that .. That day i learnt an invaluable lesson .. When in doubt, or otherwise, speak the truth .. Dont even exaggerate.. If you cant speak the truth, dont speak..... But .. I didnt know that my next lesson would come very soon...

We were driving in my car on the ring road, Cathy was telling me that she used to drive. I took out my standard line of .. "Drive my car .. be my guest " .. I was pretty certain that she would chicken out as I had seen other's, when they sat behind the wheel and saw Bangalore's frightening traffic. I parked on the side and she took the wheel .. For the next 30 minute's I prayed the most passionate prayer ever in my life.. Cathy didnt know too much how to drive, but was determined to at least die trying on the Outer Ring road .. I was just collateral damage i guess.... Anyways after a lot of pleading she stopped the car and I had already learnt the next lesson.. Never challenge girl's without thinking. They might actually do what they say no matter what.

It was colorful time hanging around the DTP center, Wimpy's and the disc's with P and T. P used to dance pretty well and used to set the pace of the leg shaking.. Listening to Air Supply and looking at the star's were some crazy activities, which now seem's straight out of Karan Johar's Junkyard .. Cathy used to like the movie What Dream's may come which I saw recently.. A very colorful movie .. One line I particularly like in the movie is when Dr Chris Nielsen (Robin Williams ) says " Its not about understanding. Its about not giving up .. ".. if you believe in a soulmate this is a movie for you... I have the movie on my laptop... .. Dude's, should see it sometime.

What Dream's may come...

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 ..

I am not superstitious about ending numbers with 0, and this is not another one from the Series, '101 Science Tricks' , ' 101 Mystery Stories' etc from Pustak Mahal... 101 is the flat number of a small 2 Bedroom Apartment, in Koramangala, in the city of Bangalore. At the edge of the army firing range, this aparment gave a view that few apartments give in bangalore .All the stuff in the house is donated by dwellers who in the course of time, either got married or got better paying job's , and went on to live mundane live's elsewhere. Stuff includes a fish tank, a full kitchen, with all desi and videsi utensils, and a fridge too, that has cooled nothing else in its entire lifetime, but Beer, and sweet's that Jimmy and Nimmo used to bring back from home.

I dont know how the fish tank got there, but I guess some dude who used to stay there figured that girl's dig fish ( in the tank of course ) , and they dig dude's who feed the fish too. By the time we inherited the house, party's with girl's had come down to once in a few months. So usually, a day before the party there a mad rush to clean the house to give it a semblance of sanity. This included cleaning the fish tank, and running to the nearby aquarium to buy the cheapest available species of fish. One Gold fish is mandatory though. During the course of the party, each guy takes turn's to feed to get the "Oh Cho Chweet" response from the girls. I guess the fish must have felt that they have come to paradise.. Only problem is that once the girls have left, no one care's two hoots about them and they are left wondering where all those wonderful fellows went.

A permanent fixture at the house is Tommy, the faithful watchdog. Nimmo's consider's Tommy as his best friend once he is drunk.. You can hear "Mere Puttar" ... "Mere sabse acha dost" etc etc, in the corridor when Nimmo is coming back from Kamadhenu Bar.. escorted by Tommy.. Tommy faithfully waits outside the door of his master the whole night.. In the morning the door opens and Nimmo rushes out .. late for an appointment with his latest girlfriend and finds Tommy outside... "Dog... What the f*** are you doing here.. get out of my way" .. Tommy is left pondering pondering . "What a Jerk .. But he looks a lot like my master.. only thing is his hair has got some sticky stuff in it and he smells funny.... Wonder why my master does not come out during daytime" ..

Thats Nimmo for you.



101's most heavyweight ( literally ) resident was Pillai.. alias Pill's .. at 135 Kg's, Pills was in the best shape of his life when he was in 101. Most of his time was spent between the Sh** department ( that's what the toilets were affectionately called) in 101, Sleeping in the Hall, calling up insomniac American ladies from the Dell Call center. He is also the first one up and ready to go when someone says "P" of party .. Well sometimes's Pill's is out for 2 - 3 parties
at once and gets quite high .. Once Pills was coming back from one of his chain parties and I was sitting outside the house.. I went " Hi man why are you pushing the Bike" .. Pills : " Umm .. I dont know. I have been pushing for some time" Me:" You look like you fell down" Pills " Oh Yes.. Thats why I was pushing the Bike" Me : " Well you can always start the bike after you get up from the fall" .. Pills : " Oh . I figured it would be easier to push. " .. Me: " #@#$@!#@$@!#.." ...
... There are many stories with me in the Pills position, but lets not get into that ...

Pills ..



Jimmoo the The Sardar Who gets Drunk with Pepsi.. is another integral member of the house. For two years the waiters in Kamadhenu Bar tried to get Jimmy to put a drop of Rum into his pepsi ( Ya that's right, not the other way round as usual with Sardar's ;-)), but failed miserably. As 70 % of the time, Jimmy is the only sober person in the gang, we rely on him to make sure the bill's are actually correct. Probably one of the infinite reasons why we decided to suffer his absolutely revolting PJ's ...


Jimmy



Tina ... The Serious Guy of the house. elite ( sleeps on the only bed unlike other poor fellows who sleep on the floor), and aristocratic. He usually is tensed about something at office, till the time we met one of his co workers.. we asked" Hey you know Tinu who works in your group in Wipro. Does something very serious and important most of the time" .. Reply was " Oh he.. he sit's around and read's novels most of the time" .. Tinu tried to explain that those were his CCIE books and not novel's but we preferred not to believe it.. He has an amazing bike ( refer blog below ) ... Tinu has left for Dubai and the bike is still in 101. A memorial for all those day's..

Tinu ..




The next guys is Hari Puttar.. The oldest member of the house.. A die hard Osho fan, spends, most of the time in the house, reading about Osho's views on sex , While he is out, he goes around taking pic's of "Poor India ,Hungry India" .. Sometimes he get's bumped in the head by locals who dont appreciate his "art" ..

Hari Puttar





The other folks are ... Cow ( George ) Pills Junior ( Major Saab ) .. and the visiting professors, Santhu , Sachin T, Manu .. I.N.S Ramesh etc .. I will be back with their stories soon ..

statutory warning: Folks who have not studied in the High Voltage Millenium Batch in CEC will think I am nut's if they read this post. Kindly read with discretion.

In the good old days when we used to when we used to believe in Gangs and Tatoos, When a mans word was more important that reverse sign-off mails.. there used to be two gangs in our college CEC, called Bichoo and Eagles .... Actually there was only one gang,.. but whats a gang without gang rivalry.. so the gang is always referred to as Bichoo and Eagles, two fierce gangs always at war with each other.. The main agenda of the gang or gangs rather .. was "kuntrac" .. mallu college lingo for "non-stop showoff" ..

Two of the most interesting members of the gang were "shunt" and "cac" .. Shunt was from the beach town of Kollam ... His only problem in life is that he is dark as a raven, ( even after using fair and lovely every single day of his life) .. Calls himself Shunt - IAS.. (stands for Invisible After Sunset). Cac is from the land of 3 L's ( Latex, Lakes, Letter's and Liquor .. oops did that make it four.. The fourth one is unofficial i guess) .. Kottayam.. His only problem in life is that he is only 4 Ft 11" tall even in 4 inch heel shoes.. .. He usually never stands and talk's to you unless you are standing near a small platform or pavement, on which he can stand.. The reason is he likes to make eye contact while talking ( this is only possible for him if he were living in a circus ) . Incidently these two gang members were roomies too... only problem was that most of their conversation was centered around the two problems mentioned above.. a typical day walking back home would be -

Cac .. - Dei Sandhya Aayi .. Road il ninnum maari nadakke allengil Bus driver kaanathilla.. idichonde pokum ( Move over from the road man .. its night and the bus drivers wont be able to see you .. )

Shunt .. Sheri .. ninakke pinne aa prashnam illello .. ninte height businte levelilm thaazha alle.. bus mukalil koode poykkolum ( Ya sure .. you wont face that problem though .. your height is less than that of the bus's clearance.. it will go clean over you ) ..

The next great member is Jhaadu .... He claims that he is of pure Jewish blood and consider's everyone else as gentiles .. He owned one of the most amazing Bikes ever manufactured.. Actually it was a normal old Yamaha rx 100 .. but one day Jhaadu was riding back from a visit to his trusted mechanic Jayaraj and he was faced with two bikes coming together on the road .. He suddenly has an irresistable urge to be Mick Doohan and decides to go in between the bikes.... To his bad luck it turned out to be an Ambassador car... anyways after circling in the air for some time, he came down to earth .. The three bermuda's he wears beneath his jean's to enhance his rear end, saved the day for him and he escaped without many injuries.. The bike was totalled though.. In comes Jayaraj to the rescue.. He decides to transform the bike into something that could compete with the 'Choppers'. After a painful three month process of "boiling" serveral of the parts, including the piston and cylinder and god knows what.. and layers of paint from a loaned compressor, the bike was finally ready with amazing features like ... Rain Prediction .. if there was rain within 1 Km of the bike, the bike used to stop .. it used to start only after the sun came out for a few hours.. Sub Inspector Ajit Detection: The bike used to somehow go only in roads where Ajit used to come out for his traffic inspections... So most of its life was spent in chengannur police station, or jayaraj's workshop ... It was routine for Jhaadu to come running to class and ask " Aliyaa .. Give me a matchbox now" .. We used to ask " Why .. what happened ? " and he would say " I am going to burn that bike .. today too it stoped in front of the girls hostel and I had to push it from there with all the girls laughing at me ..!! " ...

The next Character in the gang is "Oommen" ... Oommen, better known as tharikida oommen.. is the heart and soul of the gang ... Was a typical Gulf baby when he landed in college.. But a few months after we raided "Panchayat" ( The doctors house where he stayed.. we thought the name fit the actual use of the place ) using PM as a trojan , Oommen became a full blown mallu .. Well, next time when his parents came to India, he went to visit them... It was late when he reached home and he went to sleep.. Early in the morning he somehow must have thought he is still at panchayat, because when the phone was ringing without anyone picking it up, he yelled " Oru Ma***num illeda phone edukkaan" .. His shocked parents came in the room and asked " Son .. where did you learn this language " ... Well Oommen had a hard time getting out of that fix ..

Balaji is one member I dont need to introduce to half of the civilised world .. and most of the uncivilised world too .. If there would be a Organisation called Entertainment Unlimited, Balaji would be the CEO.. mind you Balaji would be dead serious though.. it is his serious talk that makes us laugh ... There are so many things to say about this wonderful character that I have to dedicate an entire blog to him ..


Then we have the all powerful Chack's a.k.a Chackochie... No one knows his real name.. I dont think even he know's .. Anyways a Quentin Tarantino fan, Chackochie was the terror of the junior girls .. that is till the day he fell in love.. oops .. i think I should be stopping now regarding that .. Chackochie, Cac and Saneesh charirman of ABCL ( Thats All Blacks Corporation Ltd and not Aby Baby's Company ) were the heroes of the 2000 Arts festival.. There are many more interesting characters, and I shall return to complete this post.. till then ...

Hey let me put up a few pics of the gang



Boozing in Kodai ..







At Pillar Rocks

Chengannur..My"Naadu".. I guess home for everyone is the place they grew up. I grew up in this sleepy town in the heart of the erstwhile travancore kingdom, on the banks of the Pamba. Best known for its Bhagavathi Temple, like any other indian town, its got its own charm.

Chengannur Ambalam..

My best memories about chengannur, are associated with the Pamba river. We have played around in the river, innumerable times.. The best part is when the river floods over and we have holidays as all schools are converted to relief camp's. We go out wading into the water.. trying to catch fish with thin towels, called "thorthe"..

Another place I used to love going to was Paandavan Para.. A good viewspot, where we can get to see the town on one side, and the greenery in the nearby areas on the other.. It is also a good place to spend a lazy afternoon, sleeping in the shade of the Rocks.. There are depression's in the rocks that looks like huge footprints... its said that the Paandavas rested there during their exile, and the footprints are those of Bhima.. There is also a hollow rock which we used to bang to make sound's..... and in the center of the place, there is a small lake, which is rumoured to have a hole that reaches an underground cavern that reaches till Kanya Kumari... Goats have been rumoured to be lost there.. Apart from this, there is also a very smooth place on the rock, where you could slide down, and kids used to say Bhima urinated there.. but I dont know how true that is though..!!











Pandavan Para Temple

The Boys high school brings back memories of many cricket matches.. The ground was the Shivaji Park for many budding Tendulkars in the area... The main competition though was about, who gets to break maximum number of holes in the "Ode" tiled roof of the school by hitting sixes .. This is the school, where my father and his father studied.. I never dreamed that I too would study there, but finally I did, when it got converted to an engineering college.. But they built one of the college buildings right in the middle of the ground, which broke the hearts of a lot of cricket enthusiast;s in the area..

I stay in a place called Angadical .. Near the government ITI... My school, St Gregorious too was nearby in a place called mulakkuzha.. After my school on the way to Kidangannur, there is a place called Kuruchimuttam .. Essentally its a huge paddy field, through which the road goes.. its a lovely place, especially early in the morning, when the mist covers the paddy... I and My college mates have spent many an afternoon doing "combined study" or more appropriately, talking about anything in the world from girls to global warming, except studies..

Hi Folks, ...

Kicking off my blogging experience ..

My first impression when i heard the term "online - diary" was .. "What !!! .. my diary should be in my desk and not on the net" .. but off late i am overcome by this irressistable urge to express myself ... maybe it is the industry that is making be feel that way.. I find myself identifying with Dilbert more and more as each day goes by.. I felt like doing something more than putting my brain in the fridge every morning so that I can get to work.. quite ironical as i work in the so called knowledge industry .. :-) ..


I havent written anything since i used to send "News from bangalore" to everyone in our batch .. That was when I was cooling my heels on bench in Infy .. so all the creative evergy was flowing free ...

Now five and half years later ... and my brain cells heavily strained from the idiosyncrasies of the IT Industry .. I really dont know how much sense I will be making.. But anyways let me give it a try.

Apart from this, I would like to thank so many wonderful people i have met in my life, for all the amazing, crazy moments that we shared..

Rgds
Robby