My My My

The blog is overpouring... why is everyone on family time when its not even Xmas? NEW Tamil New Year , Pongal, nostalgia, birthdays, trips, it seems to bring us together?

Wow marathon runners. Well, Kap and i have joined an aerobics class so we may be running soon or at least cheerleading. Only thing is I've already had to visit the ortho who said sternly, no jumping.
An all you kids, look after your teeth. Rootcanal treatment is somewhere close to death.

But to quote Dachu and someone else 'Youth is wasted on the young'. You dont even know what you are enjoying.Maybe like the Brad Pit movie, we have to live backward to appreciate it all.

I read White Tiger non stop yday at Cbe. He's a terrific story teller, but no great liter auteur.Appa is very upset by all the negative hype India is getting through this book and Slum Dog. Dog is very depressing too I hear.

Kar that looks a fantastic cake. Did you make it? What about the rest of the goodies? Is that Surya? He looks like like some all American, basketball star. Can we have a close up?

Babu congratulations on fixing on your colleague after a long selection process that seems to have vied the Oscars in non-biased selection. Can we say, East or West, India is best?? :-))

Anandhi, nice nostalgia trip. Think Ravi and Kap are digging up their trips.

We are off to delhi on Wed. With designer luggage and by flight and some terrific hotel :-)))))Maybe next time we can add designer clothes too.

Marathon

Vancouver has a 10 km "sun run" where more than 50, 000 people come in to take part in april
For the last 4 years I have walked it. Babu my time i 95 mins. I ma sure as a marathon runner you must be doing it in 45 mins. My dream is to jog this 10km one day. I always start my training jogging and then drop the idea half way through.....

This friday I am going to Denver to Chelvi's house, with surya and uthra. Will post after my trip.

Surya's bday

Yes he invited 25 kids, as many girls as boys. They had a good time. I spent 3 hrs cleaning up after the event.....

hi,
ravi thanks for the tips.
babu still going strong at marathons as usual. puts us couch potatoes , in a defensive position.
surya how did ur bbirthday with 25 guests go. kar are u still sane after it.
did vishy do the catering.
chennai has been relatively quiet past few months with no local gossip or rumors to liven up things .
kapu

an update

Hi, rang Ravi the other day, we (anya and me) were at Manchester United's Ground, they were playing Ravi's Hometeam Derby. United were 3-0 up at half-time. Ravi conveniently did not answer the phone.
Dachu .. was looking out for you in the bits they showed here on NDTV of the Mumbai marathon, could'nt see you. Did you do it? Will not ask you the time you did it in?
I have plans for a half Marathon in a picturesque part of Cheshire in late March. Have to start training for it.
Have appointed a new Dr colleague to work with me. Had applicants from literally all around the globe. We had a panel to go through the selection process and interviews as I did not want it to be in any way biased.
And the Dr is from Madras who studied at MMC.
Its a small world.
Not seen SD Millionnaire yet, has anybody seen it?

kitchens wardrobes

Make sure the door edges are sealed I dont know what the name is but previously they used to do things by hand for the edges with a beading but nowadays they have sealed edges that is machine done and they look lovely
also try and get self closing doors and drawers that slide in when you release them
maybe be a bit expensive but worth it
glass helps to add a bit of class

I might scan some trip snaps from sundarrajan and load them up
ravi

Hi all..

while speaking of the tours we had in the younger days... just reminds me of the trips to kulithalai and elsewhere in 3700 with 12 to 13 of us inside and me being the thinnest (cant believe!!!) always on a lap for sometime and of course in the floor after a couple of hours... kapu and ravi used to join me in the great place.. as we were the youngest among all oldies... but longing for such trips.. and missing athai who organizes such wonderful trips..

the other trip was to Chalakudi, no kids around, just us (val,kar,ravi,kapu,Pc, kalu,me) with food packed by athai and she had the generosity to take care of our kids.. would any of us dream to do such things now... ???
no plans whatsoever, just driving and to see that all hotels closed for good friday but still enjoyed in the spooky highways guest house.. and then just drove to Cochin... no restrictions, no no's for anything, did whatever we liked.... my my.. what days... missing everything now...

Anandhi

hi everybody,

reading the blog after so looooong. its nice to read all the mail.
darshu where do u get such photographers with their so so romantic poses ???/ they must be unique for trichy i think !!!!!. anyway u look good .
ravi shall we upload some of our trip snaps to show the younger generation how hep we were then.???
sindhu ur trip sounds fun.

everybody with some experience in house building please give some tips and pitfalls to be avoided while planning wardrobes and kitchens.
ashwatha and nandhika . how do u find ur room tables and cupboards.

went for pc sorkar magic show. same old tricks masked by some acting. nothing new. the fourth generation sorkar has obviously studied in england with a wonderful accent. couldnt understand half of what he was saying. after the magic show experience dropped the idea of going to the circus.

kapu

Perfect Family

Dachu spent Pongal with 'her' family at Trichy



Looking into each other's eyes?

Welcome

HI Ravi, That is great news. You're welcome any time. Actually the name of the house is Ilavenil ( to the tamil illiterates here that means- early spring) . So it would be perfect when you come .
Right now its good sunshine in the day time and rather cold at nights - wonderful weather.

A 15 seater plane?. new experience. Sounds good but bumpy? You are certainly experiencing it all Ravi.

We (Pc, Dachu and I ) are goign to Delhi next week. Anyone is welcome to join us. No expenses paid. Except food and accommodation.

Ravi, I hope the right people are listening to your words of wisdom. Only laer we realise, those were the best days of our lives. Right now, I think Im having the best days of my life.

generation gap

Looking at the snaps i think Thats what we used to do in medical college and even though we didnt know it it was a fab time, we went quite a few tours , even have some photos of me dancing !

i think all these trips does wonders to people skills etc much better than attending any classes
so go for it !
In our days a few marriages were fixed in these tours ! hopefully you have stayed out of this until Mr Right pops around in his flash ferrari and yacht at the bay( assuming all are his make sure you look up his bank accounts !)

as we all say we can only be here for you ,

went on a small plane yesterday felt a bit claustrophobic
you could touch both walls from my middle seat only 15 passengers !
all work related , Have to do it again tomorrow!

Kallu planning on a 2 day trip to ooty with one night stay at the "Villa of Peace " is that okay with you in Feb- Mar
Ravi

goutham remains

so happy to read abt me and abt yyyy, saroj sajit pls take note

me leaving for malayasia and singapore tomm (15) night,

for ten days wont be around in chennai and coimabatore

every body take care

gou

here is this yyyy gang in the pic

Dedicated to Goutham and....

People born between 1925 and 1945 are called ………
the Silent Generation
People born between 1946 and 1964 are called ………
the baby Boomers
People born between 1965 and 1982 are called ………
the X generation
People born between after 1983 are called ………
the Y generation
But ….Y
Y
Y
Y
Y

Y

Generation Y

Goutham had so painfully explained the lengths parents of generation Y have to go to to buy designer 'jattis '.
So this post is dedicated to Goutham and all the young men in our family who live upto Gen Y

why is the blog almost dead?

why is nobody writing?

its so dpressing to check the page everyday and see nothing new that ive finally decided to contribute something....

this is taking a lot of thinking... and i really, really

 hate that...

so have decided to tell you the story of my great Darjeeling trip... we had a four day term break in december and 15 of my class mats decided to go 

to darjeeling and i tagged along. unfortunately the trip ended up being more of a journey to darjeeling than actual sight seeing there.

In true "younger gen" fashion the first thing we did was to miss our connecting train from Kolkata. 

Darjeeling, like Ooty has really bad connectivity, so our journey was planned in 3 stages - train from  Bhubaneswar to Kolkata, train from Kol to Siliguri [ a place at the foothills, like Mettupalayam and Ooty] and finally, taxi to Darjeeling.

We started off well enough. Caught the train from BBS and in spite of dire predictions to the contrary, reached Kol 45mins before r next train was due.

on the train from BBS

 

at the BBS station

We reached Howrah station at about 6.am. Our connecting train was from another station called Sealdah at 6.45. We even made it there on time but unfortunately asked the enquiry desk what time our train would arrive. they said it was running late and would arrive only by 8. so we went off happily to eat breakfast, returned at 7.30 and found that r train had left just 5 mins back.

Howrah bridge at 6 in the morning

So naturally, the next step was to go have a shouting match with the station master. It wasnt very satisfactory but he did sugest that we catch another train which left from Howrah station at 9.30. 

Back to haggling with the taxi drivers, a drive at breakneck spped across town and 

we reached Howrah station to find that no one in that place had ever heard of such a train. 

so we were back

 to squre one again, wondering what to do next.

And across the same bridge again, a little while later.

While we were sitting outside the sation, racking our fine MBA brains for ideas, we realised that it was Christmas.  So we bought a cake at the station and had a very wierd Christmas

 celebration there.

Then someone suggested we catch a Bus to Siliguri. As it is a 12 hour journey nobody was very enthusiastic about taking a gov bus. So grown wiser with experience, we sent only two guys to the bus stand to make enquiries. They discovered a really nice sleeper bus there that lef

t at 5 in the evening and luckily we got tickets for all of us on the same bus.

One problem solved, now we had to figure out what to do for the rest of the day in Kol. We had among us a 'local' who had lived for 12 years there but knew next to nothing about the place, which we did not discover until too late and so ended up spending the day in Kol's very nice shopping mall.

It was a pretty fun day..... just shopping and eating. Actually... it was an almost perfect day...

Well, we caught the bus on time and expected to be a Siliguri at 6 the next morning. But as they say man composes and god disposes... or something like that at any rate.

We woke up at 3am and discovered a huge traffic jam which postponed r scheduled arrival to 10am. Woke up again at6 o'clock, we had perhaps moved 5kms further along the road.

The great traffic jam.... the line of lorries really stretched for miles

To make a long story short we spent 28 hours on that bus. Apparently some CPI MLA had been killed nearby, so the party was calling a 12-hour bandh. Traffic would apparently start moving only at 5 in the evening. It was really not our day.

  

in the fields near where r bus was parked during the bundh.

We finally reached Siliguri at 9.30 in the night, after several fights between r driver and some party workers. But luckily we reached ther in one piece and found our taxis waiting for us [ we did do some thing right]. 

Had dinner in Siliguri and then finally started for Darjeeling at about 11pm. Reached our guest house at 2.30am, just waiting to fall into nice cozy beds..... but it was not to be so.

Our marathon tour of Darjeeling was due to start at 3.30 am.... dont ask me why....

will tell u abt it in my next post....

bye bye

sindhu

Thankyou

Dear Dachu and kal, kap and sindu

and appa, kalai, gnanavel and gg ( who called me)

Thankyou for your wishes....made my day..Its always nice to know that you have made an impression ......

from vishy

Happy birthday!!!

The man who revolutionised 90 Sivananda colony, who introduced us to the fast life with leather jackets, bonfires and dancing. Not to forget shorts :))
Who taught us not to take life and ourselves so seriously and ensured we all had a whale of a time when you were around.

We hope you have a great day and a rocking year ahead!!!
Happy Birthday Vishy uncle!!!

hi

hi everybody,
the blog is quiet. i think everyone is busy with their hols and trips..
how did everyone spend the new year.
on the whole from what i gather everyone had a quiet evening and night.
i sometimes feel that we are obliged to have an enjoyable time and not treat it like an ordinary day.
the trip to coimbatore threw me out of gear and i still havent got into the routine.
bye.