Of Journeys made and forgotten

I was just speaking to a friend and she reminded me of a trip we took a while back.I think it was August 2003, or later, or earlier. But mostly around that time. The time before I earned enough to get myself a digital camera. It was around this time that we, Deepthi, Archana, Rashmi, Shwetha and I set off to Deepthi's grandmother's house in K R Nagar. It is about an hour away from Mysore. We had the nicest time .Some moments are clear as crystal and some I cannot seem to remember.I will put down what I remember of those 3 days.

  We set off nice and early one morning, before 6, the train was at 6.30 am . Still sleepy and bleary eyed. The train started moving and in a few minutes, the sun started streaming in and we woke up. Well, what happenes when a bunch of girls get together and are awake and are on a journey. They talk. So we did.A lot.We laughed a lot too.loudly.I'm sure we were quite a nuisance. But hey, who cared, I love train journeys and had good company.

    The next hing I remember is that we got down at Mysore and there was a car to pick us up. The next thing we know is the car has broken down a good 20kms from our destination and there is no bus stop or any other mode of transport. We hitched a ride from a old couple who were charming and kind. We reached and the house was a one storied building, it had large rooms and was where extra rooms are added as the family grows. They had a coconut farm and large fields. I remember being fed a lot of breakfast because I was 'thin' and underfed. Well, I'm a lousy eater and I hate eating a lot. They only stopped because I looked like I would cry.

   We then hung around and spoke to her grandparents. Really nice and simple people.She also had a great - grandmother who I remember was really active at 88. We went for long walks, drank coconut water, ate lunch, slept, had dinner, played a game called 'chowkabara' till some wee hours in the morning.

   This cycle repeated for the next day, except we went to the town square and had some more stuff to eat.  I remember eating a lot during this trip. I loved the coconut groves. We hung out there, walked through sugarcane farms, ate fresh sugarcane. The sweetest I have tasted in a while. The trees looked greener, the hibiscus healthier, the air sweeter and cleaner. We walked a lot, spoke a lot (yeah yeah...i know...this is different). Were happier. Had good food. Played some long forgotten games. Tried some home made beauty products. Generally lazed around and had a great time. We visited an old temple. Lovely place, next to Cauvery and heard some legend about how one cannot hear the gusinh water because lord Rama cursed the river because the river was deafening. You really cannot hear the water inside, even if it is like a few feet away. Had a picnic too. We came back in an almost empty train and made even more noise. Found another bunch who were travelling to Bangalore and created enough din for the few remaining passengers to give up trying to sleep.

   Why am I reminiscing, is because I just want to remember the good times we had. Now that all of us have our own lives, work pressures, families. We had a darned good time. We need to remember and not push it to the recesses like a Business Law chapter (man!...THAT used to be boring). 

    

Janardhan Hotel - Of Dosas and Badam Halwa

I am inspired today. I am going to finally make sense to people who think why there is a picture of Dosa on my blog and no mention of it anywhere. Today I'm going to write about one of our favorite places for masala dosa. Janardhan Hotel.I have always known about this place and have rarely gone there.Cant really explain why though. Then enter Sunitha, a friend since JM Financial days. She loves masala dosas. Actually she loves eating good food. She describes them in a way that makes you want to eat whatever she's describing, even if you just had a full lunch. She's mean :P . We went around to places which served dosas and filter kaapi and eat and drank to our hearts content. Janardhan is one of the places that she re - introduced me to and I'm grateful. Thanks Sunitha... :) , you're a pal .

Location : Kumarakrupa Road, Shivananda circle, across Banjara hotel

Ambiance : It's a really old hotel, large foyer, old style bulky furniture. Old style service.Kannada rules (yay!), clean, airy, spacious enough. Frequented by politician types and an odd assortment of rich looking youth, families and other employees.

Food: Well, since I mostly land there during evening to have dosas, I can only comment on what I've tried. The dosas are perfect. They are the right size, perfectly roasted and with the right amount of palya(curry) with the right amount of chutney. It's perfect because eating one is quite enough. If one's planning to have only dosas then you need to be mighty hungry to have two. Their badam halwa is another delicay I'll probably have only there. Tasty, not too sweet, served in a small packet is how much you can eat, Sweet tooth's like me manage two more. Of course, coffee, it goes without saying. Dosas and coffee are soul sisters. Coffee is great too. Like what my mum makes at home. Oh yeah! try ther maddur vadas, they're really good too. It is a truly satisfying meal. Yes, a meal by itself. The service is prompt. No complaints. They leave you alone to eat your dosas. The prices are really easy on your pockets. 

There is a certain charm to these places that a newer, fancier, pretentious place cannot ever replicate. Try Janardhan once. You'll not be disappointed. 

Scribd

Yup, I know. I do actually mean scribbling. I'm going for the searchability of the keyword here. Anyway, today are random thoughts that I that flit through my mind on a quiet morning. Read Megi's blog today. She's gone from ballistic to buffonery in a rapid blink of an eyelid. This time her phase lasted long enough. What to say..cartoons will be cartoons. So today I travelled from seshadripuram. Need to traverse through the (in) famous MG Road while getting to work (no rambling about good old days...promise) .I saw that people have learnt to adjust.Swalpa adjust maadi. There was no unnecessary honking, no frustrated faces, no flared tempers, no road rage. Might be the early morning factor. Yet, I travelled by these very roads 6-7 months back and the scenario was very different. People lost tempers at even 8.15 in the morning. There used to be a honking match.Mine's louder than yours. One arrived to work after waging a war on the streets. people still do. It's no better. Maybe it was just today, an off day.But I arrived to work feeling fresh, the 45 minute of travel did not leave me feeling homicidal. 

        One does not need chirping birds, bright days and empty streets, a morning without someone cutting you off in the front while driving, or without a maniac who wants to go fast even in bumper to bumper traffic is enough. See, not greedy, just practical. Traffic's the bane of Bangalore. It is the bane of most developing cities. Since Bangalore lacks a good public transport system, traffic woes are more acutely felt. I sincerely hope atleast my grandchildren get to use the Namma Metro (from the looks of it...that's my estimate on how long it may take). So I sat in the auto today and reflected on how nice it'd be in Mysore or Chickmaglur. Hmmm....that's a thought...now if I can convince my office and Texas Instruments to shift to either of the places, I'll be a happy woman.

             

Tale of two sisters

Ok, we have world movies.Yippeee....Every friday at 11pm they play 50 movies to watch before you die. So we settled down to watch (or rather I settled down to watch and left Prashanth with little choice) Tale of two sisters, a South Korean horror movie. We watched it from almost the beginning. The beginning itself was very interesting, large isolated house, creaky stairs, dark corridors, sinister noises and characters. Engaging, we thought. Settled deeper into the sofa to watch the rest. It is a tale of two sisters whose father remarries and hence beings their tale of woes. Simple enough.
So far so good, we established that the stepmother is evil (now she is, now she is'nt) but hey, we've watched too many hindi movies to know the difference. Mother - always good, Stepmother - mostly evil. So we watch and watch..some more shots of the sisters, the stepmother, the mother, the creaky stairs, the dark corridors, some blood for a good measure. An hour and a half into the movie and we still have no idea who is the ghost and are begining to get confused who are the sisters and who is the mother. They all look alike. They do.Honestly.Promise. Flawless skin, lovely hair and complexion. So we watch to keep track. It's more about who's who than who's ghost now. So we keep watching and voila!!!!...the movie ends....Still no idea who's the ghost, still no idea why the sisters are scared, still no idea who IS the sister or who's the mother, still no idea why we watched.
So if you are planning to watch, please keep track of all the women from the beginning, dont lose track of their differentiating moles, birthmarks etc. Keep looking for the plot and the ghost and please let us know.

Accounting terms

Ok, I've been graciously nominated by Pranitha to write this blog post. She's being magnanimous today. Am seriously worried about the state of her brain. Anyway, she's my cousin and a CFA (pending charter..see, ethically correct term) and she's apprently teaching some folks accounting on Saturdays. Why? because she's being magnanimous. I already mentioned that. So here's an excerpt of her lesson for the class which she's painstakingly prepared.

Accounting terms and their meanings:
1 : z+z=zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . This is the basic accounting equation
2 : ass + ets = assets = jenifer lopez = Pamela Anderson
3: liabilities = the boys in the class
4 : profit is what u get from conning people
5 : loss = feeling you get when u realise u were conned
6 : operating profit = profits from surgeries when docs con patients
7 : gross profit = you're grossing me out now
8 : net profit - what they use to trap you to make their profits
9 : creditors - run when you see them
10: debtors - run towards them
11: fixed assets - what the point if you cant jiggle them?
12 : depreciation - what happens to you mentally and monetarily as soon as you spot an iphone

PS : I, me , myself have given a couple of suggestions too, though I forget which ones ( the ones you like probably ;))

I happen to like this accounting than any B S Raman or Jain and Narang and any other fancy institute authored textbook. So, to all the folks in Pranitha's accounting class tomorrow... (all the best for december..I think you'll need it)

Bangalore - A day to remember

July 25th. A day people of Bangalore will not forget in a hurry. Ok, maybe it's too early to write, but write I will, I need to put down what I feel before I forget the feeling altogether. So here goes..
Mid- afternoon...about 2:45 pm, someone in the office declares that there have been serial blasts in the city. Not much reaction is garnered at this announcement. Largely because such things people tell and the rumors spread and it's all a great big hoax. But this announcement was immediately followed by another colleague in the office saying that there have been blasts. Google's put into use immediately. Google shockingly throws up results in news channel websites flashing the news " Flash news : Blasts rock Bangalore ". First reaction is of complete disbelief and then denial. Bangalore??? Namma (my) Bangalore, come on, not possible. Then reality sinks in. It has to be true. Rumors run wild., all the localities are mentioned as places of the blasts. Panic sets in. People call their friends, parents, spouses, children to see if they're fine. Phone lines are jammed. Interenet helps.Long live Gtalk, Yahoo chat, MSn which helped peple get in touch (HINT: Dont block them ;)). More news trickles down, live videos are watched, things get a little less panicky. 7 blasts are confirmed, casuality :1- Lakshmi, injured: reports vary. Low intensity blasts. people sigh in relief and helplessness and propably in fear and get back to what they were doing.Companies ask their employees not to panic, Roads are jammed and everyone's in a daze.
Who'd have done it? At the time of this posting, noone has owned up to it and the police are still looking. Some say it's a warning of what these people are capable of. Some say, it's more local and related to the local government coming to power.Some say terrorists. Some say law and order problem. Whatever it turns out to be in the end, The incident has shaken Bangaloreans. Very much. Because such things happen to other people, not us. And now we are the "other people". What a tag. What a way to make a point.
After all this, life goes on.

So..it's a friday afternoon......it's been three since half an hour...i swear....( ok ok...it feels that way), my back hurts, so does my arm and my head...(not really...but headache has more weightage).It's what working the whole week does to you. That's why 5 day week should be outlawed.It should be like a three day week.., any three days you feel like working, you can turn up. Now there's an idea. Can make shwetha and shruthi the founder members. They're great gals and they'd support their friend( that's me) unconditionally even if it means going against their 5 day 12 hour per day work week ethics. They'll support my cause and my idea behind it.
Rashmi can be the member who upholds the work value ethic.Noone is allowed to work for more than 3 days. Anyone working more than that, their salary will be cut for that day. See we follow HR rules too ;) .Even after that, if people insist working more, we can hire a psychiatrist (Gosu'll know someone) for the emotional wellbeing of our employees, see..another HR rule implemented.
Then we can have a nap time, it'll be made compulsory and good old meghna can be in charge of it. She's ruthless. We can imbibe some good qualities from Japan. They're good in these things to do with character and such.
We can have a HR (personally..this post'll be vacant for as long as I can help it cos what does a HR do anyway. cost efficiency you see).
We will be an international firm...well..there's no other sort you see...So our business will be in the US, UK and such...What our business is???..well monkeys.....
OUTSOURCING....we'll outsource...what?? anything!!.name it...we're the business baby!! ;)



p.s. Any other names you think will be useful to my organisational structure can be sent across. We'll see if it 'fits' into our profile.