When my brother's wedding was fixed for the 22nd and 23rd of March, I assumed that it would be probably 3 days (21st,22nd,23rd) of heavy work.I couldn't have been further from the truth. The pre-wedding work ran mildly starting from February and hit full throttle by 18th March. I guess things were even tougher because I was cramming in all the pending stuff for ISB - preparing my loan application, CAS declaration( I think a couple of companies I mentioned might not even exist!!), worrying over a laptop( which I still am doing !!), flunking my pre-term assessments, forcing people into completing my LDP assessment etc., etc.,
My two weeks that was
17th March - Final touch-ups to the loan application, taking a backup photocopy of it and couriering it across.
18th March - Samaradhanai - Pooja for the ancestors,flunking accounting.
19th March - Begging my tailor to give me my blouses and hunting for an outrageous piece of jewellery to wear at the reception ( I think I succeeded!! One of my friends said that I looked like a tribal ;-) ).
20th March - Parlour work!! It's amazing how much confidence a female derives after a parlour job.
21st March - Mehendi and prep for velayadal!! I think I'm glad it rained monstrously. Atleast 6 people dropped out from coming which reduced my bill by 1500 bucks.Being unemployed, I can't stop counting the pennies.
22nd March- Viratham,Nischayathartham and Reception.Need I say more? Tried to sleep at 11, but due to the heavy exertion of the day, was left with a racking cough that kept me awake till 1.
23rd March - Early morning muhurtam!!:-( Woke up at 3.15 and got ready. Kasi Yatra, Malai matzhinal, oonjal, muhurtam, grahapravesam...etc., and finally head back home at 4. Felt completely drained out.
24th March - Flunked the other two pre terms, completed my CAS, booked my train tickets to hyd, filled in my arrival information and then finally headed to Chidamabaram and saw the temple there. It blew me away. The Chidambaram temple is extremely old ( more than 10 centuries apparently) and an architectural marvel. I fell in love with it. Then headed to Vaideshwaran Kovil where we settled in our cottages and played ludo!! I love board games!!
25th March - Did 5 abhisekams at the temple, had lunch and head back to Chennai.
26th March - Kept jewels back in locker and then bro and sis in law left to Bangalore. I then dived head first into Dominoes. I needed a break from heavy south Indian food!! God.. I've added soooooooo much of weight thanks to the heavy food :-(
27th,28th March - Shopping with sis and spending lots of time with her and her in laws. Very nice,friendly and open people.
29th March- I'd missed my bed lots and lots !! So slept all afternoon and then evening watched Race with cousin and had dinner at Bellaciao. Was quite tired and didn't have the energy to drag myself to the ISB Meet. Now that I'm feeling fresh I wish I had attended it. It's quite useful meeting up with the other admits. It's good to know people prior to joining school and lots of useful information to be gleaned. I hope there is another meet before I need to join school. Anyway, I can call G or M and ask them what I missed.
There's so much of work I need to do prior to joining!! :-( I think 1 month was just not enough time!!
Showing posts with label Travelling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travelling. Show all posts
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
A VISIT TO TIRUPATI
On Saturday, my sister and I decided to make an impromptu visit to Tirumala. We boarded a volvo at Majestic at around 9.30 in the morning. We reached Tirupati at about 3.30. After buying tickets for a Darshan we started our climb. It took us about 4 hours to reach the top, but was absolutely worth it. The mountains in the dark were tinted red with the setting sun and cool breeze washed itself against our faces. It was beautiful.
On reaching we booked a room. When we went to collect the key, I made a rather terrible faux paus. The guy at the counter asked us " Are there men?" in telugu. Not to be proved any inferior, I decided to reply back in Telugu. I said "Odhu" ( No in my dictionary). He jerked his head upward stalling in whatever he was writing and said "What?". Deciding that he was rather deaf I repeated "Odhu". He looked rather stunned and my sister was suddenly jerking me back. I turned to her and said " Did I say anything wrong? What does Odhu mean?". With a very embarassed smile directed towards the counter guy she whispered to me "It means Dont Want". I was like "Oh" and then burst out into paroxyms of laughter. Luckily the guy at the counter seemed to have a decent sense of humour. He smiled and gave us the key.This was probably at around 9.00 in the night.
When we went to the room, much to our misfortune the loo was disgusting, the room not cleaned and the mattresses were damp. After much debating we decided that god would certainly forgive us if we didn't stay for a Darshan. We immediately returned the key where we had a lively argument with the counter guy, refusing to pay cash for cleaning the room. Saw no reason to. It had not been cleaned for us. We saw no reason to pay when we had not even occupied the rooms. We then went to the office to collect our caution deposit. The young punk at that counter actually demanded 10 bucks to give us back our CD. My sis was all set to pay it, when I just turned to her and was like " Forget it. There is no way we are paying a bribe in Tirumala!!!". Grabbed the money from the punk's hand and ran out of the place. We then boarded a bus to Tirupati and from there took another bus back to Bangalore at arount 11.30 in the night to reach at 5.30 in the morning.
We were feeling extremely guilty for not having had a Darshan so had a bath and left for a Balaji temple at Domlur to assauge our guilt. End of a trip which was a series of unfortunate/fortunate events!!!!!
On reaching we booked a room. When we went to collect the key, I made a rather terrible faux paus. The guy at the counter asked us " Are there men?" in telugu. Not to be proved any inferior, I decided to reply back in Telugu. I said "Odhu" ( No in my dictionary). He jerked his head upward stalling in whatever he was writing and said "What?". Deciding that he was rather deaf I repeated "Odhu". He looked rather stunned and my sister was suddenly jerking me back. I turned to her and said " Did I say anything wrong? What does Odhu mean?". With a very embarassed smile directed towards the counter guy she whispered to me "It means Dont Want". I was like "Oh" and then burst out into paroxyms of laughter. Luckily the guy at the counter seemed to have a decent sense of humour. He smiled and gave us the key.This was probably at around 9.00 in the night.
When we went to the room, much to our misfortune the loo was disgusting, the room not cleaned and the mattresses were damp. After much debating we decided that god would certainly forgive us if we didn't stay for a Darshan. We immediately returned the key where we had a lively argument with the counter guy, refusing to pay cash for cleaning the room. Saw no reason to. It had not been cleaned for us. We saw no reason to pay when we had not even occupied the rooms. We then went to the office to collect our caution deposit. The young punk at that counter actually demanded 10 bucks to give us back our CD. My sis was all set to pay it, when I just turned to her and was like " Forget it. There is no way we are paying a bribe in Tirumala!!!". Grabbed the money from the punk's hand and ran out of the place. We then boarded a bus to Tirupati and from there took another bus back to Bangalore at arount 11.30 in the night to reach at 5.30 in the morning.
We were feeling extremely guilty for not having had a Darshan so had a bath and left for a Balaji temple at Domlur to assauge our guilt. End of a trip which was a series of unfortunate/fortunate events!!!!!
Monday, October 31, 2005
DRIVE SAFE..!!!
I left to Hyderabad from Bangalore on the 27th night.All set to enjoy my four day Diwali vacation. The season being a hectic one, and me having not booked my tickets two months in advance had to travel by bus. Fact is , I hate travelling by bus. Especially if it is an overnight journey. My bus which was supposed to leave at 9.30 dilly dallyed waiting for some passengers and finally left at 10.15. After a rather bumpy journey, at around 8.15 in the morning we were finally about 50 kms from Hyderabad when we got stuck in a traffic jam. The reason? A bus travelling from Bangalore had collided with a truck coming in the opposite direction.A headlong collision.End result?
Five people died instantaneously.
The bus had been trying to overtake the bus ahead of it when due to brake failure it collided against the lorry. The bus I was travelling on was about 10 buses behind the one that collided. A couple of people in my bus were completely spooked out. They could not help but keep repeating "Oh my god! I normally travel by that bus. It's just that this time I could not get tickets to come by that". The fear of disaster. The fear of death. The eeriest fear that one can come across. It is the only one unexplained, unexpected and irreversible.
And the only thing it can leave you saying is "If only.....".
Everyday in the papers we read about people dying in automobile accidents. Yes, I know. There have been more terrible disasters happening lately. The bomb blasts , the train in AP that derailed killing hundreds, the floods that have inundated our entire country.... the list goes on. But fact remains that there are certain things that are within our control.
You cannot say that you will not go to markets and thereby avoid bomb blasts. You cannot just lock yourself in your homes and say I will not travel by planes or by trains. But you definitely can drive a lot more safely.
About a year ago a friend of mine and me went speeding in the morning till tears were involuntarily dripping from my eyes. The thrill of it all was.... beyond fantastic! But in retrospective , I can't help but feel , was it necessary? What if we had skidded to deformity if not death? The oft used and tired slogan 'Speed thrills but kills' is more appropriate than it has been given credit for.
There is so much of tragedy in life that cannot be averted. So much of pain and suffering that we must need experience. Yet so much of tragedy we can avert just by driving safe. Just by deciding to not speed through life.
Drive Safe.
Five people died instantaneously.
The bus had been trying to overtake the bus ahead of it when due to brake failure it collided against the lorry. The bus I was travelling on was about 10 buses behind the one that collided. A couple of people in my bus were completely spooked out. They could not help but keep repeating "Oh my god! I normally travel by that bus. It's just that this time I could not get tickets to come by that". The fear of disaster. The fear of death. The eeriest fear that one can come across. It is the only one unexplained, unexpected and irreversible.
And the only thing it can leave you saying is "If only.....".
Everyday in the papers we read about people dying in automobile accidents. Yes, I know. There have been more terrible disasters happening lately. The bomb blasts , the train in AP that derailed killing hundreds, the floods that have inundated our entire country.... the list goes on. But fact remains that there are certain things that are within our control.
You cannot say that you will not go to markets and thereby avoid bomb blasts. You cannot just lock yourself in your homes and say I will not travel by planes or by trains. But you definitely can drive a lot more safely.
About a year ago a friend of mine and me went speeding in the morning till tears were involuntarily dripping from my eyes. The thrill of it all was.... beyond fantastic! But in retrospective , I can't help but feel , was it necessary? What if we had skidded to deformity if not death? The oft used and tired slogan 'Speed thrills but kills' is more appropriate than it has been given credit for.
There is so much of tragedy in life that cannot be averted. So much of pain and suffering that we must need experience. Yet so much of tragedy we can avert just by driving safe. Just by deciding to not speed through life.
Drive Safe.
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