Caffeinated Thoughts...

Well, there is always this problem in here, that if a boy and girl are close, people start teasing them.. I had given a thought about writing this post first, but yeah, I am sure that myself and G know whats there between us.. To all those perverts out there, seriously, we are 'just friends' :P and I sincerely advice not to cook up stories on your own ;)

Just to give a brief introduction about G - shrewd, "dumb", sweet, helpful, caring, forgetful, ever-smiling, intelligent, book-worm, conservative, blah blah blabbering (now, thats common for a girl,isnt it ?!?!), clever, easily fooled etc etc.

Well, what has she been to me, to make me write this post.. If there's someone who could figure out am not doing good, it would be her.. Someone who has listened to all my rantings, whenever am pissed.. Someone who wants to hear my opinion on things.. Someone who just makes my day bright, with her standard "hi pa.. gm" IM's every morning.. Someone who doesn't let me work in office because of her IMs (just kidding ;) ).. Someone who has stood with me at the right places and at the right times.. Someone who gets to know the first-hand information about me almost instantaneously.. Someone who shamelessly selects girl friends for me :) (tamil la 'mama'  nu solluvaanga ;) ).. Someone whom I tease a lot and sometimes vice-versa too.. Someone whom I can confide things and someone who trusts me equally.. Someone whom I will remember all through my life..

Yeah, this does kinda sound like an Orkut Testimonial, doesn't it ?!.. I thought I wasn't appreciating things/people with me.. As a first measure, I thought it would be great to write about someone whom I know almost very well.. 

Confused ?!.. What possibly on Earth could this post title refer to ?!.. Would it be my ATM card pin.. Well, I am not that dumb enough to do such a thing either.. So what could that be, lemme give a clue then. It would be easier to figure out if you were a cricket lover, probably a bowler.

Now, if you still couldn't figure out what the above digits mean :), let me put it straight-forward here. Those were my bowling figures when I played cricket yesterday. 2 Overs, 1 Wicket and 6 Runs conceded.

Yeah, this may sound a lil childish, but to me, it was one a-ha moment. It was the first time I played cricket in 2 years time. The happiness while running down the ground to bowl the first ball after years, made me feel so good. Though, it was a cherishing moment, *OUCH!!!!*, it hurts now.. Its been more than a day, and still I feel tired...

When someone makes you feel low, you can forgive once.. Maybe thats HUMANITY.. 

What if, the same person makes you feel soo low, in a way that no one has made you feel the same in your 22 years of life.. 

I was given the previlege to enjoy the last week of 2009 at Coimbatore, courtesy to the  "gotta-end soon" recession.. Yes, yet another cost cutting measure, but its kinda good in a way though to have a welcome break :) Atleast, I got sometime to put forth my resolutions.. Uh oh,hang on,ooops, actually I am searching for that list now ;) ...Okay let me stop trying to be tooo funny and write down what I actually intended to..

Ooooh... Am I out of it !??!.. Well, not exactly,but yeah its coming towards the end... This year has been one kinda roller coaster ride, majority of which I wish to drain from my network of grey cells... If I go down the memory lane about ten years back, I still remember telling my mom that I would start earning by the year 2009..  Apart from it,never had I guessed, it would be an year which would teach me the most important lessons of  life..

At last, the melancholic feeling of being 'devoid' shattered on Dec 5th, 2009... This was the perfect way to break the normal routine..

Q : What used to be my normal routine ?!..

Q : What is this "Insanity" all about ?!..

A : Be patient n go through the rest of the post to know more ;)

         The guys from the Software giant  D E Shaw & Co. (literally, a company which fills your purse with tons of money ;) ) were in town to spend the next two days in the city.  It was a big clan and the members of it were Myself (Sathappan), Vinod (Rabbit), Venkatesan (Venki), Vineeth, Karthick, Srinivasan (K man), Sriram (P man), Sundar (Family man), Raghuram (Compiler), Bhaskar, TM Vinodh (Dam Uncle) and Saravanan (KV)..... TM had already left for his interview and KV was getting ready to attend his interview, the major reason for which they had come to Bangalore this day..

        In such a big group, that too most of them being hostelers, making everyone to have bath is in itself a big task and yet we succeeded in the task of getting ready by 1 p.m.. KV had finished his interview by then and had joined us by 12.45 p.m.. Another guy named Sethu, a friend of Rabbit had joined our group and the crowd was getting bigger and bigger :)..

        Barbeque Nation, well known for its starters, was the obvious choice for us and having had a light breakfast we were ready to gorge (not literally :P )... Non-vegetarians in the group had the best grilled chicken, prawns and mutton, while the vegetarians weren't disappointed either as they were offered spicy corn, paneer and mushroom.. Barbeque nation had its traditional way of intimating the waiters to stop the starter service by turning down a flag which says "Turn down to stop starter service".. Guess we held a record for keeping the flag upright for a loooong time... lol :)

       In between the lunch, TM, who had finished the interview by then, joined us for lunch.. It was 3.30 by then and there was a discussion about the next place to hang out.. Some including myself wanted to go for Go-Karting, while others wanted to go for Bowling and there was another elite group who wanted to go back home and sleep (a side-effect of the heavy lunch we had).. We finally decided to go to Go- Karting..

        There we were with the Go-Karting track in our sight and ready to ride the karts.. Saravanan, who wanted to get some sleep went home, left heading towards our house and Sabari joined us directly at the Karting site. Myself and Vineeth, proud to be good enough riders, chose to ride the most powerful kart and finally ended up getting insulted by the person there as to whether we had experience driving karts, for which our answers were an obvious "NO" :P..  Having very little experience with karts, 5 of us chose to drive the "moderate" skill level kart, while others chose the beginner level kart..

        While we were waiting for our turn to drive the karts, we were making fun as to how it would be if we had a chance to hit the tyres that marked the boundary of the tracks and made a real mess of the track.. Poor TM, who thought we were serious in our discussion of hitting the tyres, did it in reality as he found his way through the tyres and came to an halt hitting nearly 5 or 6 tyres.. Unfortunately, he was disqualified for the stunts he was doing :P (lookout for the pic of TM walking down the track after being disqualified :P)..

        Others drove well, some slow, some fast and some quite amazing.. Venki, who was new to driving ( I mean really new, because this is the first time he is driving a vehicle), was very slow on the tracks but yet managed to complete his quota of 6 laps without  hitting any tyres until he did something really comical towards the end. While trying to stop the kart, instead of hitting the brakes, he was shaking his leg in the air and came to halt after hitting the tyres :P .. Overall, the one and half hours spent there was real fun :)  

       Yeah, we had no other chance other than to spend the evening here.. All that we did here was watch, watch n watch even more ;) ... The group got separated into two groups, drinkers and non-drinkers... Drinkers headed towards Purple Haze and others spending time strolling in the mall and returned home..

       It was a fun filled day in here.. The water rides were the best part of the theme park and we had so much fun dancing,sliding and playing in the water.. The notable rides were the Rain Disco, Boomerang and the Vertical Fall (though I didn't try this one :( ).. To call it for the day, we ended going for a ride in the Lazy River trying to push each one into the water..

     It was time to bid adieu to the guys who came from Hyderabad.. Due to the rush against time, we weren't even able to bid proper "bye" stuff, but yeah, thanks to Airtel, for making life easier :)..

     Thus came an end of the really loooong weekend, where our adrenalin levels reached to an all time high.. Insanity ranged from having a real heavy lunch which made us literally difficult to walk, a guy dashing the tyres with his kart, going to the pub, going in rides where we were literally upside down, dancing in the water, making others drown in the pool etc.. In short, there was unlimited excitement over the last weekend :)

             I dunno much about poetry.. These were just random thoughts which I had put down in the form of a poem.. Your comments are welcome !!! Ciao !! :)  

Hello people !!! I am back to blogging after a looong time, I guess not that long.. Okay, let me start scribbling in here.. This post, for sure, isn't about the movie "Life in a Metro".. Having lived in Bangalore for atleast an year now, I guess I am worthy enough to write this post..

So where do I begin with... Okay, you are always greeted by a group of people ready to empty your pockets as soon as you enter the city, be it airport, bus stands or railway station.. Let me describe my experience.. I landed in Bangalore on Nov 29, 2008.. Initially I was amazed by the Bangalore International Airport building, which was comparable to other International airports worldwide.. Well there was this guy at the arrival area, well dressed and good looking, offering a ride to the heart of the city for 1200 bucks.. Having turned down his offer, I walked a few 100 feet where I was offered a ride by another cab driver for 900 bucks.. Turning down his offer too, I kept walking another 500 metres or so, n yeah I still continued turning down the other offers on my way, where I boarded a comfortable Volvo bus cashing out 150 bucks..

Well, if its cab drivers for the airports, there are these auto-rickshaw drivers for the bus stands and railway stations waiting to rob all your money literally. Just as the bus comes to an halt, you can literally see atleast 15 auto drivers running towards the bus as if there was a bomb scare at that place.. These guys, with their speaking skills and familiarity with multiple languages, can easily charge you 160 bucks for a ride which normally (or legally) would cost 80 bucks.. Once entered the city, again you find thieves in the name of 'house owners' charging phenomenally high rents for places comparable to the size of matchboxes..

Once settled, life turns to be brighter for a couple of months... Those days in the super-sophisticated offices equipped with ultra-high speed internet, air-conditioned blocks (which includes restrooms too),ambient workplaces and finally to mention the lump sum being credited in your bank accounts at the end of the month are definitely a dream for any guy entering into the corporate world.. Bangalore has this special name "concrete jungle" for the umpteen corporate buildings that can be found in and around the city..

Life turns even more crazier during the weekends with a host of pubs (though I have been to only one), restaurants, not to forget the huge shopping malls sheltering almost every international brand (u name it, u ll find it) and the 'sophisticated' multiplexes charging you almost 200 bucks a movie for the extra cup holder and the lil pushback in your seat... But, yeah, at some point of time you have to console yourself for the heavy price, looking the ambience and maintenance of the place.. Its when I personally realised  that whatever you pay, restrooms in India can NEVER ever be clean..

And now, a treat for the guys, this place is populated with umpteen number of girls where ever you go.. Some modern, some cute, some smart, some hot and some totally haphazard with their weirdest dressing sense (the so called 'fashion')..  

Okay ppl, this is my first "kavidhai" (as called in tamil).. On my way back from home after diwali, the guy sitting next to me in the bus disturbed me at 2'o clock in the nite as I was sitting by the aisle. Finding it difficult to get back my lost sleep, I was keenly listening to one tamil song that was playing in mobile. The lyrics of the song was too good, so I thought why shouldn't I try writing one on my own. And here I came up with one which I want to share with you ppl.. Maybe its not excellent, but I felt it to be a nice one for a first time !!!.. Happy at my accomplishment :) , I had a nice sleep soon !!!.. 

It was September 19th, 2009.. Myself and five friends decided to watch "Unnai Pol Oruvan" an awesome Tamil movie starring Kamal Hasan.. The show was at 4'o clock in the evening.. After the movie we had a pretty decent dinner at Hotel Maduri Grand in Old Airport Road.. When we had finished our dinner, it had rained cats and dogs.. We waited for the rain to lessen in intensity.. After some time, when it was drizzling, we had started to our house.. On our walk back, it again started to rain heavily and the tails within us went upright and we started to run in the rain all the way home !!.. It was so much fun, felt like we turned into kids for those moments.. Happily we reached home totally drenched in the rain!!..

Recently, I ended up asking myself a question 'Have I enjoyed every moment in my life, be it good or bad ?!'... Well, its practically not possible to enjoy every moment in life.. So I rephrased the question 'Which one was I good at !?.. Enjoying the best moments or Worrrying for the bad moments' ... Well, still the answer is not that straight-forward.. But am sure, I (or rather 'WE') haven't enjoyed some of the best moments in my life..

Lost in related thoughts, the first moment that strikes me dates back to somewhere in1993.. When I was about 5 years old, I slipped and fell into a pond in a temple.. Without a knowledge about swimming, I drowned in the water.. All the people above at the bank could see was few centimetres of my collar and two or three strands of my hair.. Luckily I was pulled out by a person whose name was also 'Sathappan' (same as mine !! ;) )... If not for that person nor the visibility of the few centimetres of my collar, I would not have been here now enjoying the world and boring (hopefully not) you people reading this blog :) !!..

The other moment that strikes me dates back to somewhere in 2001.. It was the engagement of one of my cousins to be held in Madurai.. I was already there in Madurai and my parents were travelling by car to Madurai.. My dad was kinda new to driving on the highway.. Unfortunately they met with an accident.. The car in which they were travelling collided with a truck and the scenes were pretty bad.. But luckily, both my mom and dad were unhurt in the accident.. It was one of the best moments which just passed on like a normal event.. Probably I was 12 years old by then and now I couldnt imagine where I would have been if something else had happened that day.. Similarly, in 2006, my dad met with another accident in which the car he was travelling, rolled atleast 2 times and landed upside down due to a burst tyre..He was unhurt in this accident too.. There goes another best moment.. These are just some of the best moments in my life which just passed on without much of excitement..

Well, the idea for this post came after I heard a sentence from a tamil movie called 'Tamil M.A' which goes like this "வாழ்க்கையின் சில சுவையான தருணங்கள், ரசிக்க படாமலே போய்விடுகின்றன".. The english translation of this sentence is "There are certain sweet moments in life, which go totally unnoticed"..

As an ending note, I am sure, if you could spend sometime after reading this post thinking about similiar unnoticed moments, you would have had a handful of them.. If one accquires the ability to enjoy such moments, life would be much sweeter than what it is now !!!.. :) .. Ciao !!!..

Well, where do I start with about with this post, It was a long pending one in my mind except for the fact I dint have the sufficient time to pen down... Intel ( INTegrated ELectronics) obviously remains to be the dream shot for any electronics engineer.. And am obviously proud to say I had the opportunity to work and start my career with Intel as an Intern.. Intel had always been one of my dream companies... I still remember the days when I was a kid when I used to tell my mom that I would work in Intel one day.. Luckily I had to start my career with it.. Happy that lucky star shone on me with this ;)...

Being an Intern, my work wasn't that burdensome.. As I had mentioned in my previous post, the work assigned to me demanded more of my physical presence... As it goes, to become a king one day you need to start all the way from down.. Well my attitude basically is that,

The work I did became monotonous as days passed by, but never-the-less the learning curve wasn't a perfect flat line ;).. I had an opportunity to learn something new... Apart from the work, the environment at Intel was awesome..There was no such prominent senior-junior stuff among the employees.. We, interns, were treated equally as employees and where allowed to enjoy every right the employees possessed..The infrastructure, amenities, employee benefits, organisation was way too good..

Wish I hadn't gone through the mental trauma due to personal reasons during the internship, which would have made me enjoy the Life @ Intel to the fullest... In-short, life @ Intel was some fun..

Well, Its 10 : 30 p.m now and I start writing this post to wade away my random thoughts and wild emotions which exudes from my heart after I saw something which highly disturbs my mind.. The emotions are quite complicated ranging from vengeance, disappointment, love, affection, embarrasment and what not... I know these emotions stop me from reaching my destiny.. The thing I was really destined for... I need to pull over this negative energy which is cropping up around me somehow... And so 'blogging' was the solution which struck me...

It all started on November 29th, 2008 at around 9 a.m when I stepped out of my house with tons of dreams and confidence to achieve something in life without a single clue of what was in store for me for the upcoming six months.. We (a group of 3 friends) caught a flight and landed in Bangalore in the afternoon.. Being a weekend, we didn't have much of work to do and we decided to shop everything we needed to setup a home (toiletries,beds n other stuff).. The first time I ever did something on my own.. It was a nice experience :) ..

December started off with a huge thrill with me entering the corporate world for the first time with bit of nervousness and with booming confidence to achieve something.. The first two days went up with an orientation programme wherein we were told about all the usual facts and stuff about the company policies and regulations.. It was actually a group of 50 people who had joined Intel at the same time as me as interns.. Initially, I was put down on getting to know the work that I was supposed to do for the next 6 months.. The work assigned to me demanded more of my physical contribution than the mental contribution...

As days passed by, I found myself basked in a deep sense of loneliness...The persistent feeling of loneliness creeping up within me, the disappointment in the work I had to do, the disappointment that I wasn't enjoying the final days of my college as my friends did back home, the puzzling and mysterious conflicts between me and my dearest friend on this planet; went hand in hand with each other serving me with a perfect nightmare I had to live up with for the five whole months!!!.. Now, I feel that I have pushed the wrong buttons, I had failed to stand up for myself at situations where I should have been fighting..

Nevertheless, I am happy that these days dint leave a brutal mark over me but taught me 'what life is ?!..' and 'who people are ?!..'... I learnt bad times are surely a scale of measuring the benevolence of the people whom you call as friends... I learnt that a relationship is always to be evenly matched, you seem to be a Stupid if you continue to do things when you are perfectly taken in as a duck on the other side.. The biggest of all, I was able to assess the character of the people around me and pick out people whom I can confide and trust in..

Now, I am counting the last days of internship here at Intel... By the 20th of May, I will have to bid adieu to this part of my life which taught more lessons (to be taken as the lessons of Life rather than the technical stuff) than ever and also the part of my life which witnessed the loss of my dearest friend on earth!!!... I can never really get back these days and perfectly there's no use of fretting about it now... It taught me 'Happiness is a voyage; not a destination'.... I am sure I am seeing Life with a much better clarity than I used to before I came for my Internship...

Its high time for me to gear up, throwing away all those negative energy and forces around me!!!.. To rise from the deep and conquer my dreams... I am happy to say "I am back !!!"......

This picture is a group photo of all my fellow ECE'ans of PSG College of Technology.. A marvellous work done by one of classmates 'Radhakrishnan'..  Kudos to him as well as to the Blitzkriegerz family!!!!

Its April 22nd already, my final day in college would be on May 2nd.. Its going to come down in a jiffy and I am going to become a graduate... These four years of life thought me many lessons.. I met people from different backgrounds, different views, different attitude, different tastes, different thinking and different ambitions...

I never felt this way when I left school, Infact I never felt that the school days were over.. My mom used to ask me in awe how I could be like that without a little feeling.. I used to say ' What's there in it ?!..' But now I feel that the college life has come to an end.. I am not sure of the exact reason which makes me miss these days... Some things in life just happen, you can't reason everything...

I would like to mention the names of all those close buddies here.. Vineeth, Ramachandran, Saravannan, Sabari, Vignesh, Divya, Geetha, Muthu, Ashwin, Raghu, Sundar, Sudhakar, Srini and the list just goes on.... A heartfelt thanks to everyone!!!


I would miss all those beautiful evenings I spent with Vignesh (fondly called as Dizz) and Ramachandran ( fondly called as Rama, though I call by different name everytime) in the labs.. Those countless hours of simulations running without a break, those arguments while debugging results, those wierd but striking questions from our Dizz, the way Rama tries to type without seeing the keyboard and of-course would miss those super-computers (well that's supposed to be taken in the other way ;) )... I still remember our stay in IIT hostel during a competition, which was absolute fun.. I can still remember me and Dizz going to NIT, Trichy for a paper presentation and coming back on the same day.. It was kinda short fun trip...

I would miss those spent with Saravanna, Rama, Sabari, Muthu and other people during those lunch hours.. Myself and Saravanna were like Tom and Jerry, fighting for no reason and teasing each other... Sabari - the only person whom I have teased a lot in class, his slang of speaking, his way of walking, his way of getting tensed were all absolute fun for us... All our combined studies (guess we studied ;) , most of the time we would be discussing about the bhel poori to be eaten at 4'o clock ) during internals... Miss those big time !!!...

Now coming to the two programming geeks of the class -- Raghu and Sundar...My thanks to Raghu for teaching me C and other programming stuff during exams and placement.. My thanks to Sundar ( fondly called as Family Man) for helping me on Probability.. If not for these two people, it wouldn't have been possible for me to get such grades !!!.. I am sure these two would hit the headlines in the days to come !!!....

Geethanjali.. She would promptly let me know the portions before the day of exam.. One of my good friends in college from first year..

Divya.. I came to know about her in third year.. Became a close friend soon.. She made my life great in many many small ways.. Thanks a million for that... Hope things get well soon !!.. Miss those days very badly...

Last, but not to be forgotten to mention.. Vineeth.. Knew him from day one in college... Myself and him were the student represenatives of the class for the first semester.. He was there for me on all occasions.. When I met with an accident, When I admitted some unknown person in hospital... The only person who knows what I am going to do next... The only person whom I shared all my views ( be it serious, or be it silly) .... He was someone whom I can trust all my secrets and feelings with... I have always envied him ( especially for a certain forte of his ;) ).. He has adviced me a lot, beared with me a lot, helped me a lot... Even now, I trust him soo badly ( hope he doesn't let me down anytime :) , just kidding )... Thanks a million for all that you have been and for all that have done... Will miss these days forever.....

It's absolutely true that 'Events which made us laugh earlier, would bring tears. later.. and events which made us cry, would bring laughters later' ..... My eyes get watery, when I write this sentence.. A real salute and tribute to this beautiful part of my life which really made me the person that I was...


Really looking forward for that day, where I would be seeing these people who touched my heart being loaded with different roles and responsibilities but with the same sense of friendship between us.... Thanks a Lot, Miss U people....

It was the much awaited Thursday night, the reason being that Friday being a holiday and I get to go home for the weekend... It was a thrilling experience till I boarded the train.. As usual,I was waiting for a bus to get to the railway station.. After sometime, I got into a bus only to end up disappointed on the fact that there was no vacant seat.. The feeling that I had to stand all the way with the backpack made me even more disappointed..

There was an old gentleman sitting along with his grandson kinda two rows from where I was standing.. On seeing me struggling to stand with the backpack, he offered me a seat and kept his grandson on his lap.. I returned his favour with an hearty thanks.. His act touched me so much.. I wish to thank him once again now..

Having known about the traffic in the city, I boarded the bus almost one and half hours before the scheduled departure of the train.. My face turned all red when I noticed the traffic extending for more than a kilometer.. The last thing I expected at this stage was to miss the train because of the traffic.. I got stuck up in the traffic at three different locations.. Against all odds, I somehow managed to reach the railway station five minutes before the departure time.. It takes a five minutes walk from the bus stop to the railway station..

Somehow I managed to reach the station two minutes prior to departure.. As I was running down from the pedestrian bridge to the platform, I saw the train moving and for a second I thought I had missed the train.. But luck favoured me that day,because soon I realized that the train had been late by few minutes and had reached the station by then only.. Atlast, I caught the train :).. It was a good one and half hour experience !!!...