Re-living the College days

*** This post is dedicated to all my old friends!

Recently my sister got admission in Bangalore for +2 and shifted base here. She is staying with us now.

In Karnataka +2 is called Pre University, which one is supposed to study under the University syllabus unlike major part of India where it’s under school curriculum. Therefore practically she entered college 2 years earlier than we did :-).
Initially I was a bit skeptical as to how she would cope with the co-ed college environment. She has been a Girl’s school student all her life and is known to be more ‘girly’ in nature unlike me. [Probably I was trying to be a protective elder sister!]. However I was pleasantly surprised seeing her being comfortable in the new environment, in fact enjoying it.

It is very interesting to see her enthusiasm for anything related to college; be it studies, friends, activities or daily incidents. Once she comes back home after the classes, first thing she would do is to give a detailed report of what happened in the college, which girl did what, which boy said what. Who proposed to whom, who is very friendly with boys, who is shy blah blah. To be very frank I enjoy these talks and get a feel, I am back to college again! These talks have not changed since I have passed college. I tend to compare them with my college days, and find that they haven’t changed much. Back then I thought they were so important in life, now I know these are all silly stuffs but still enjoy them and fall prey for a gossip even without my knowledge!

Everyday she would come up with a new story, like; yesterday it seems they were playing ‘Truth & Dare’. I got so involved in the discussion that I started asking her enthusiastically who opted for truth, who for dare, who said what, who did what etc. Later when I thought of this, I was laughing at myself. One more interesting story was a boy trying to ask for a girl’s phone number, and she was not interested in sharing it with him. A typical college scene and how my sis helped her to give a fake number etc. Funny thing is she keeps asking me, what the right approach to solve various issue is. And I feel amused at the triviality of it but still love to solve it for her. Only advantage is now I can solve them from the perspective of an adult not an adolescent’s perspective. For this reason I feel sis has got an advantage, she has someone who she can get genuine help from, where as my learning was all trial and error.

I am liking this new fascination and enjoying every bit of it. Thanks to sis I am re – living my college days. Wish I could have brought back those days again and had all old friends around. Have those silly ‘Coffee House’ sessions for hours and still have energy to walk back to the Hostel to save some money for next day’s ‘Coffee House’ session.

*** This post is dedicated to all my old friends!

Dasaavatharam – The Movie

I went to watch Dasaavatharam yesterday. Was not expecting too much from it, as I had already read review on one of my friends blog. The movie started inside a stadium, where Kamal Haasan – the Bio Scientist addressing a pool of people regarding a 12th century incident. The 12th century scene was quite strong and full of drama. I liked Kamal’s acting as the Vishnu – devotee Bhramin, however could not understand why a scientist had to talk about such an incident which has nothing to do with the rest of the story.

After the 12th century episode it suddenly returns to current time and shows a research center in USA where Kamal is a researcher. From here the movie turns to be a thriller, minus 12th century incident. But there were lots of lose ends;

- The date pointer in the screen showed 2004. Now if it is current time, why not 2008 or 2007?
- How the Fake CIA agent knew that the actual parcel had reached Chidambaram?
- How did he reach the same hospital where Kamal (scientist) had come with the Muslim woman?
- And the top of all, what was the significance of showing the Avatar Sing’s post operation scene and post Tsunami scene in the beginning of the movie?

Editing of the movie was so bad that there was not relation between a scene and the other. I think they should have paid a little more to the editors. Looks like as if the editors were not happy, and screwed it up knowingly or carelessly.
Last half was too dragging. You won’t believe I even felt sleepy for a while. Asin’s character was so dumb, she kept saying ‘Nan Perumal’ I think after every sentence! Even when they were trying to escape from the fake CIA agent, she kept saying it! As if nothing was more important than ‘Perumal’!

Some of the action scenes were more hilarious than ‘Shivaji’. I didn’t know how Avatar Singh was able to jump out of the stage and come back without any support! Make up for few characters were not very seamless, in fact they were looking pretty odd, like the Japanese, Afghan and the fake agent.

However, Kamal’s acting as the 12th century priest and Balram Naidu was awesome. Some timely comic dialogues are good to nullify the drag. Hats off to him to carry off the whole movie in his sole hands. He is a genius and will remain so.Probably my expectation from any Kamal venture is so high that it gets difficult unless all the crew is equally talented. After seeing Hidustani and Chachi 420 I feel make up would have been better. Top of all Kamal should have directed the movie himself, I am sure it would have turned out much better.

Is it passive petting or pure love, care and trust?

Both me and my husband (Aneesh) are animal lovers and always like to have animals (dogs, cats, birds etc) around us. However, we do not keep pets in the house as there is no one who can take care of them, while we are away on the job during the day. One fine evening when I came back from work, I could hear a kitten crying somewhere around the house. I was alert immediately and wanted to find him. Even after searching for quite a while I could not spot him, by then Aneesh was back too. We searched the whole area outside the house once more, yet could not find him. We decided to try our luck once in the morning as there was not much light there. Whole night we could hear the kitten crying.

We searched the area in the morning again, found him inside a carton box which was lying in one corner outside the house. He was trying to come out of it, as the height was too long for him to climb up; he was not able to come up. Seeing us he was quite frightened but when I slowly started patting him, he calmed down. I slowly took him out of that box, took him inside the house and gave some milk for drinking. The way he drank milk showed that he had not eaten anything for the whole night. Ideally he should have been accompanied by his mother, as he was very small. Definitely he would have got lost, or the mother would have abandoned him. After feeding him we gave him a box to sleep in just outside our door and left for office.

Evening when I came back, I saw there were 3 more kittens along with the mother just outside the main door. I was so happy to see the mother feeding all the 4 kittens. I don’t know how she found one of her kitten was with us, but there was a sense of relief on her face.


After some time she started communicating with me, meaow meaow! Though I didn’t understand what she was saying, I thought probably she was hungry. I gave her some milk… kittens also started sipping in from there. I was right, she was very hungry. Her eyes were thanking me when I served her milk. By that time Aneesh had also came back, and he was delighted seeing the new visitors. However, neither the mother nor the kittens allowed us to touch them. I expect that’s natural characteristic of cats, they don’t allow anyone to get too close to them, unless they are fully confident that the person is harmless. We kept the door open to see if they come inside and to let them know we were harmless. We just wanted make friends with them.



Initially the kittens were afraid of coming inside the house; however they started getting more comfortable as time passed. Their mother would sit just outside the door and the kittens would come inside the house, play with carpet, wires etc. They were obsessed with any kind of moving object, therefore would try catching everything which is moving. Once they caught my toe finger as I was moving it! Within few days they grew up quite a bit and became friendlier than earlier.


They are playing hide and seek!

This is called affection for your sibling!

One evening when I came back home I found the mother missing… the kittens were all curled up just outside the door. The moment they saw me they started calling meaow meaow. I knew they were hungry so quickly gave some milk to them, called their mother for quite some time but she never came. Kittens would not stop meaow – ing even after drinking milk. I wasn’t sure what the reason was, may be because their mother was not around that why.

Mother cat never came back till date. As if she wanted to find a nice caring home for her kittens and leave them there. Now all four kittens live just outside our door and come inside the house occasionally. All four have become so friendly that they don’t mind us touching, patting or adoring them. They sit on the carpet with us and watch TV. They adore us by licking and rubbing their face against us. They don’t stay inside the house but have become integral part of the family. We know even if they go somewhere, at the end of the day they will come back to us.

I am not sure what to call it. Technically this is passive petting, but I think this is pure love, care and trust.

Trip to God's own Country (I know why they call it so!)

I am sorry for the delayed post, actually was pretty busy after I returned, and therefore could not update it. Though this was not my maiden Kerala experience, this was the first time I was visiting the famous back waters. So had few expectations in mind… Planning was far better than the Goa trip, we had learnt from our mistakes (not bad I must say, keeping the track record in mind :)), had booked train tickets well in advance… still didn’t get tickets for Kanyakumari express! We had to book tickets for Kochuvelli express from Yeswanthpur, however the timing (Yeswanthpur 11.30 pm – Cochin 12 pm) was good. We wanted to visit couple of places; therefore thought having a combo package would be logical and opted for an accommodation + travel package for 3n/4d and got the whole deal in 30k for 5 pax.

Day one: Left Bangalore by Kochuvelli express (11.30 pm) and reached Cochin (Ernakulam) next day at around 12.30 pm. An A/c Tavera was assigned for our local travel for the whole trip. Hotel (Sealord) was about 4km from the station facing Cochin marine drive and had an excellent view of the sea.
2 a/c deluxe rooms were assigned for us. Rooms were very comfortable and A/c was apt for the hot and humid weather. After freshening up we decided to have typical Kerala lunch [including Karimeen fry, Hmmm Yummy!], rested for a while and headed for a Cochin city tour… Cochin is a typical harbour city and I found quite a bit of similarities with Kolkata! We visited some old churches, had hands on experience of the ‘Chinese Fishing Nets’, and discovered a snake charmer…. I was thrilled! Evening was for lazing around and bonding.



Day Two: We had decided to visit Veegaland (a water theme park), and left in the morning after breakfast… on the way, saw some nice rubber plantations, cute small churches, temples and a political procession! Veegaland experience was very exciting for my sister as she was going to a water theme park for the first time.
We headed for Kumarokom in the evening; it was about 2-3 hours of drive. When we were approaching Kumarokum, saw the stretches of back waters, I was very excited. When we reached our destination, we were told to take a boat ride to reach the resort. That was a pleasant surprise, we never expected it! Cocobay resorts had lived up to its name; it was really beautiful and serene. It was on the bank of Vembanad Lake with loads of coconut trees around… we reached there after dark, yet we knew a great view was waiting for us in the morning. All the rooms were a mix of traditional Kerala house and a modern architecture. Though it had A/c, the ceiling was wooden. We could hear pigeons chirping (not sure if this is the right word)!

Day Three: Morning was an absolute treat for eyes… around us was greenery of tender grasses and famous Coconut trees and in front of us was endless blue patch of the Lake! We spent the day lazing around enjoying the view and swimming.
Houseboat picked us up from the resort in the afternoon, and we were on the way to experience another spectacle, as we sailed through the lake we were at admiration of such unadulterated greenery, blue waters and local people… Attendants had prepared us traditional Kerala lunch along with Karimeen Fry, it tasted heaven (I am a huge Karimeen fan!). It took us about 5-6 hours to reach Alleppy.
As the boat needed to be decked during nights, it was decked near the World Famous Nehru Trophy Kerala Boat Race venue. Evening was bonding time with the family. We also watched some random movie in the boat’s DVD player. I still cannot believe that we had dinner at 9pm! (Usual dinner time is 11pm :))




Day Four: It felt really nice to wake up to the noise of kids jumping into the water and practicing water sports! We had our morning refreshments and breakfast on the boat… they had made us Puttu and Kadla Curry (No sure if I have spelled it right). It was time to bid good bye to the houseboat and check in to the Ayurveda Resort for some authentic Kerala Massages. After showing the finishing point of the Nehru Trophy Kerala Boat Race boat dropped us to the resort.
I must say I had never experienced anything like this resort, before. I felt like as if I had gone back the pre-independence time. All the cottages were made of wood and other natural elements. Apart from the split a/c everything else was made of natural ingredients. There was mosquito net in the room, not repellent! I have seen similar net in Jodha – Akbar! (Remember the song ‘In lamho ke’?) After relaxing for a bit we went in for a nice massage, then had some typical Kerala food and spent rest of the day relaxing.



Evening we were dropped to the Alleppy Railway station and left Kerala after 4 days of absolute relaxation. We reached Bangalore City station at around 10 am in the morning.