Driving to Bangalore


One of my friends has got an interview call from a company in Bangalore and the company has promised to reimburse him the petrol charge for driving to Bangalore. So we thought we can club that opportunity for a tour to Mysore or GOA.

So we are driving to Bangalore tonight and will be deciding where we will be up to once his interview gets over. As usual planning for drive his so high and I’m carrying a Red & White WINE bottle.

As usual we will be having our dinner at Khaja Restaurant Ambur. Other than that we have not planning much on how to spend time in Bangalore but for sure it will have a visit to Forum / Garuda Mall and I’ll have a tattoo sprayed for sure.

My Palkad Visit!!!


I started my vagabond trips from Saturday and I decided to start it from Coimbatore. I boarded a local bus from Madurai by 6 PM on Saturday and reached Coimbatore by 11PM. I slept that night in my uncle’s house and woke up by 10 o clock. Then there as a discussion on which place to go and my aunty suggested Lingam temple in Isha Foundation at Velliangiri Hills. Instead I wanted to vit palakad for a long time and my aunty said we can goto MeenKulathi Amman temple. We freezed the spot and we started by 12 noon.

Kerala is just 20 KM from Coimbatore and immediately touching Kerala’s border we felt the difference. The place is pitch green and we non-stop South-West monsoon welcomed us. Then I drove enjoying the greenery, rain on the nicely laid highway roads.

On reaching Palakad my uncle called his colleague to know the rout to temple and while calling him we can to know temple opens only by 5.30 PM. Having no choice we had to accept the invitation of my uncle’s colleague to visit his house which is a village some 25 KM from Palakad and 7 KM from temple.

En route to his house from Palakad I got startled by seeing the nature’s gift this Gods Own Country has which was Full of greenery, water ways, ponds and beautiful houses.

Then reached my uncles colleagues house which has a pond right behind his house and a scenic view of multiple falls which flows from the hills of Nelliyampthi. It seems Nelliyampthi is a nice Hill Station which is still not famous and I’m planning for a visit there soon. Then spoke to Mr. Colleague’s father who was talking about their Tamil roots and how they migrated to Kerala.

Then it was 5.30 and we decided to goto temple and Mr. Colleague accompanied. He took us to a Big Vishnu temple in his village named Karchamkurrissi temple. It was a big Kerala style Vishnu temple in his village named Karchamkurrissi temple. It was a big Kerala style templeand I was not allowed because enter I had to wear a dhoti.

Then we went to MeenKulathi Amman temple which too had same rituals of wearing a Dothi and I brought a dothi and had a good darshan in a wonderful temple.Then I returned  back to coimbatore with a thirst to vsit the place again and with cherishing memories. I took somesnaps which I’ll update soon.

Trip to Tirumala


It is always fun to be tour with friends… My best outing was trip to ooty with my college mates during 1999 when I was in my final year in college… Next best things for someone who is search of peace, solutions for problems and soul searching is by visiting temples…

I’m great believer in Lord Venkatachapathi in Tirumala, Tirupathi. I’ve been visiting this temple for 9 years. Normally I leave Chennai early in the morning return the same day by night.

But this time I took my friends getting assurance from one of by MBA mates and things got messed up. We reached Tirumala on Sunday morning and we thought my friends would have made arrangement by 9 o clock in the morning. But he forgot to instruct his subordinates and we got a ticket for darshan only on Monday morning by 5.30 AM.

So we had ball of a time on Sunday. It was like tour de spirituality. So we eventually drove all spots in the hill and stayed in a Guest house. Pulling each other and we did some shopping as we didn’t bring any cloths.

Then as usual it was a challenge coordinating and making folks get ready on time and to my surprise we were on time and had good darshan and I was relieved as I missed 2 opportunities to visit Lerd Venky on two occasions.

These are the folks who made up for trip;

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 Left to Right : Anand, Muthi, Vicky, Subbu, Balaji, Sathish…

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This is Sudhir who took previous snap…

This is how we went to temple with dothi and angavastaram;

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KPN Travels & Disappointments


I’ve been travelling through KPN Travels from my teens say for last 13 – 14 years. There were days where we strive to travel in KPN for itz service. But off late it is sad to see itz service detonating as it become a Big name. I personally faced a lot of problems with them and last week when my colleague Mr.Ramanan had a very bad experience which I faced 6 months back. I thought it was high time to bring things to Light.

 Let me start it from problems I faced.

Personal Experience One: Six months back I booked a ticket in KPN from Madurai – Chennai. I reached the boarding point 20 min before bus arrived and I got the boarding pass immediately. Then I was asked to sit on the waiting area and they said they will call me once the Bus arrives. Since it has been an hour I went to them asking if the bus has arrived and to my shock they said bus has already left and they blamed me for not checking with them regularly. Also when I requested a refund they denied it nor did they say they can make alternate arrangement because it was the last bus. I didn’t want to create any problem because I thought I must take part of the blame for not checking with them regularly.

Personal Experience Two: Five months back (during January) I was travelling in KPN from Chennai – Madurai… They driver of the bus must have kept the A/C so much cold that no was able to sleep and every one wanted to Piss because of the A/C. We all insisted the driver to reduce the A/C but it fell into his deaf hears. Then later we all asked him to have a pit-stop which was also not considered. Over a point our anger was downgraded and we started begging with the driver as we were unable to bare the cold. The driver real psychopath took all of us to Madurai with great despair. I thought of escalating it and ignored it because I didn’t want to mess with the livelihood of a driver.

Personal Experience Three: Four months back again I was travelling in KPN from Chennai – Madurai and after travelling an hour from Chennai I want to PISS badly. I requested the Driver stop for a moment. He denied my request telling if he did so many others will request the same. Finally he stopped at the pit-stop point which took another 2 hours. Again I left it because I didn’t want to complain about this to anyone because I thought there is some mistake on my part.

Ramanan’s Experience: Last week after Startup City Event was done me & bala dropped Ramanan in Bhommanahalli by around 9 PM and he got his boarding slip by 9 o clock itself. Ramanan’s bus was scheduled at 11 o clock… Ramanan said he was checking every 15 min from 10.45 PM onwards and it seems he was told bus was late. Then finally there was a bus which came by 11.30 PM and when Ramanan asked if that was his bus he was told that was not his bus. But eventually that was the bus he should have boarded.

Again by 12 o clock when Ramanan approached them about the bus. He was told the bus already left and the person who was dealing with him went into hiding. Again he was not offered a refund. But he some how managed to convince them and he was sent in by 1 o clock special bus in a seat that is next to Drivers seat. He resisted traveling in that seat. They said there is nothing they can do if he can’t sit there. Eventually he had to travel sitting there and travel with great discomfort.

It is very much sad to see a company which was known for itz service levels and for the way they scaled in 15 years to come down so drastically in service levels. I don’t know if they have taken success for granted? Anyways on all occasions we were in receiving end and unable to do anything. Atleast by writing this blog let me get contented that I’m passing this to 100’s of people and make a small effort to show my protest.

Driving to Bangalore!!!


Today I’m driving to Bangalore after a long time. Driving to Bangalore has always been a pleasure and I use to travel to Bangalore at least once in a month till a year back.

 

We are heading to Bangalore to attend an event called Silicon India event where we are giving a presentation of our business plan to a group of VC’s and visitors. Also we have booked a stall to showcase our services.

 

Will be blogging about the outcome of the event on Saturday before that we (myself, Bala, Boopathi & Ramanan) are discussing about the plans for Friday and Sunday. En route to Bangalore I’m taking them to Khaja Hotel in Ambur which is famous for biriyani for dinner and I’ll be having roti’s in a Dhaba in Vaniyambadi which is my favorite.

 

Mostly tomorrow we will be heading to Forum mall and do some window -shopping and will be watching a movie. On Sunday we will be doing the same in Garuda Mall and also itz been long I walked on the streets of Brigade road and M.G.Road which I might give a shot if time permits.

 

Also I wish to go to 13th Floor Ebony restaurant and would like try some of their Sindhi dishes. Last time I tried only one dish and was amazed. Probably this time I might go there and will try exclusive Sindhi dishes.

 

Over all I’ll make a blog post about the entire experience of this Bangalore trip once I wrap it on Monday. Tonight I’ll make a post about the experience we had while driving.

 

Now let me grab the role of driver from Boopathi as I’ve been longing for this moment for long.

10 years back!!!


Couldn’t believe that was me and 10 years ran like a min… Almost 10 years back we went for a college tour to Ooty and I just checked those photos to live those moments :)… Me with Sun Glasses, to my right the half faced guy is Saravanan, then itz Vicky, on my left is Balaji and Sathish…

Still there are more pictures which I must scan and post it online… Ok let me go back and live those days…

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A day out to Kodai!!!


Last week we had been to Kodaikanal for a day’s trip… Thanks to Major Karthik, Bala Subramaniyam, Boopathi & Sathick for sponsoring the trip… Ok itz wrong to tell it as sponsor as it is their Birthday treat… Since their birthdays fell within a month they thought they can join hands and give a memorable treat… Then boopathi took over and really rocked with his Admistration skills and finished the trip with less than 30% of the projected expense…

Asusual it got delayed because of me… I got up late and it took time to get ready, we were beyond schedule by 30 min… So all folks assembled in my house and this is the team excluding Senthil who joined us from Vadipatti…

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Left to Right: Bala Subramaniyam, Major Karthik, Yours Truly, Boopathi, Sathick

Then we picked up Senthil from Vadipatti and then we stopped at Vathalagundu to have our breakfast…

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Folks got down near the hotel, Hotel’s Entrance & Folks fighting… I just dank a cup of milk as I know eating too much will result in vomiting… But Sathick freaked with Vada, Dosa, Idly & Coffee and as expected he started vomiting… I was surprised to know that this was sathick’s first trip to a hill station…

 

Then we straight away went for site seeing… First was pine forest

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We at carrot & Ice-Cream here…

 

Then we went to Guna caves, suicide points and many other places enroute before returning for lunch to Hotel Hilltop… I over ate here and had a nice nap… We cancelled our plan to goto Liril falls and Dolphin nose because there was not much water in the falls…

These are some of the snaps we took on that day…

My reminder chart!!!


Offlate I keep forgetting things and I miss the purpose of my mission… Generally I never like to plan things and love to do things as and when it comes… For a difference I thought I can try Ghajini type of a reminder, unfortunately I couldn’t do that because of my skin color and so I thought I can keep it simple & took a print out of things I must follow the next day… In spite of that I forgot a couple of things :)… This is my reminder chart for my Bangalore trip on 29th Mar 2009 with the result…

 

Time Task Result
     
6:00 AM Reach Bangalore Success
8:30 AM Meditation Time Fail
8:50 AM Bath & Wash cloths Success
9:15 AM Start to OCC
Venue: Name Of Restaurant: ZOE, Location: Indiranagar, Address: No 3790, Opp Dr.Ambedkar College, 7th main Road, Off 100 feet Road, HAL 2nd stage, Indiranagar, Bangalore 560038,Phone : 080-42115257 / 080-42044101 

Success
10:00 AM OCC Meet (Take Business Cards) Fail
1:30 PM Lunch at 13th Floor with Dhempe n Sameet Success
5:00 PM Goto S.City GYM Fail
6:15 PM Post Vivek’s interview in Blog Success
7:30 PM Start from home Success
8:45 PM Bus Departs Success

Munnar trip: Part 1


Blogging about my Munnar trip is a long pending task… It all started with a call from Vijay Krishna asking me to join them for a trip to Punnagai Mannan falls (falls was named after Kamal Hasan’s movie Punnagai Mannan) near Coimbatore… I told them that I can join them only on Sunday as Saturday is a working day for me… Then I started my ay is office as usual and I got a call from Vijay telling plans got changed to Munnar… I was little upset because I was not mentally prepared for some other place and I was eager to visit a place which I just watched in a movie…

I packed my bags to Munnar by 3:30 PM and went to Bus Stand to board Munnar Bus… On reaching the bus terminus I was told direct bus to Munnar is scheduled only in the mornings and I was asked to goto Theni and then catch a bus to Munnar from there… Then I boarded a bus to theni & within 30 min drive from Madurai tyre got burst… Bus was jam packed and many people started boarding other buses… But I stayed in the bus and thought I can see what happens… Then suddenly driver said there is a spare tyre(stepney) and he changed the type and dropped in Theni within 2 hours… I reached Theni around 8 o clock and I was told next bus to Munnar is at 10 o clock…

I though I can have my dinner in a local hotel to get a feel of the place and in the hotel I engaged a conversation with two boys who were sharing my table… They became good friends and till now we keep calling each other :)… They told me about unexplored places in Theni and about local culture, they were very curious to know if I know any tamil actors and their houses… For them Chennai looks like heaven and it seems they have never been there… I’m really excited by the way they helped me…

Then I boarded the Munnar bus and I asked the conductor about journey time to munnar… People found from my lingo that I’m from Chennai… One particular gentleman started telling names of each and every place enroute to Munnar… I’ve never had such a journey; it was a great experience…

 I was told there will be lot of elephant crossing in the nights and if any elephant sleeps/stands in the road vehicles has to shut the head light n engine and wait till the animal moves… Unfortunately that didn’t happen in our journey and I missed that experience… But on the way we saw an elephant and it roared, but I didn’t have time to pick my camera and take a snap…

Then I slept for sometime and all of a sudden bus stopped because of traffic jam…I went out for a leak and assumed traffic jam was because of elephants crossing… Then I walked further to see if there is any elephant…

One enquiring the status from a cab driver I came to know traffic jam was because of some quarrel between a tourist van and a truck driver… It took 30 min for the quarrel to get over and for traffic to get cleared… Then atlast I reached munnar by 2 o clock in the morning… It was shivering cold in the night…
Straight away went to the hotel and the doors were locked… I was preying for folks to pick the call… They didn’t pick my call making me scared and for a moment I thought I must sleep in the streets shivering the whole night… Then got a call from Vasanth and he opened the doors… Vasanth, Vijay & Sathish came from Coimbatore… All of us were tired because of the travel and we all crashed to immediately….

Then next day we all started for site seeing by 8.30 in the morning…

To be continued………
Part 2 coming soon……

Bangalore Day 1!!!


Today has been a hectic day and I didn’t find time or unable to think something unique. So, I thought what I didn’t for the day must be enough… Here is the synopsis for the day…

  • Reached Bangalore at 5.45 AM and landed in Dairy Circle…
  • From there I boarded a local bus to reach home…
    • Ticket was eight bucks, but the conductor didn’t give back balance change… So, my travel cost me ten bucks…
    • I was happy because my New Year resolution was not to travel by autos and flights and for last 45 days I’ve been successfully following it…
  • Reached home by 6.30 AM made some post in twitter, checked mail and took a small nap for 2 hours…
  • Got a wakeup call from Dad, telling what all he has arranged for me. Dad has always been a responsible person and a loving father… He brought my favorite water melon and filled water in the buckets before he left the previous day to Chennai…
  • Then took bath and rushed to Startup Saturday and en route had breakfast and picked cash from ATM and was late as usual…
    • But there was introduction about Startup Saturday and their services…
    • Then there was a presentation by Sumeet Anand, who explained about his product Kreeo and about Collective Intellegence…
    • Then it was followed by Jyotsna who gave a presentation about Moovieshoovie.com
    • Then there was a tea break and time for networking… Time for networking was too short… But managed to be my best within allotted time…
    • Then there was a demo from Tringme.com on VoicePHP… But the topic migrated from demo to VoicePHP vs VoiceXML…
  • Then had lunch Gopal, Narasimhan & Senthil…
  • Then proceeded to StonePub in Indra Nagar for Heavy Metal Bloggers Meet organized by Indibloggers.in.
    • Event was sponsored by Kingfisher which was generous enough to offer free unlimited beer…
    • Then met with lots of interesting folks…
    • Then met Dhempe, Narayanan & Swaminathan who were already known to me…
    • Then had a long interaction with Amit and I’m expecting an email from him…
  • From their proceeded to Forum Mall along with Senthil and I must thank him for giving company… We went to an English movie “He is just not that into you” and just returned and the day has come to an end…

Good Night…