The week that was crazy

It's crazy enough to be doing an MBA while having a full time job, but what's crazier is breaking down your course activities and having to juggle it between your Job and Family life while meeting a deadline that MBA imposes.

This was one such week that went crazier by the day. Apparently I had to cover over 180 pages of writing my MBA II semester assignments by hand. Thankfully someone else had done the painful task of collating the answers to the assignments. All I had to do was hand-write each of these 180 pages within my self-imposed target of Friday, Dec 17th  to submit it to the college. Noone could have predicted what lay ahead.

Sunday, Dec 12, 2010: Started writing my assignment. Completed 4 pages. Pushed rest of the assignment to the remaining days of the week.

Monday, Dec 13, 2010: Continued writing from 7:00 pm and slept around mid-night. Completed around 25 pages and yet to find my writing speed. Not to mention how horrid my handwriting was.

Tuesday, Dec 14, 2010: Began writing at 8:00 pm, dined and wrote till 01:30 am. Completed 70 pages in total.

Wednesday, Dec 15, 2010: Had my friends brother-in-laws wedding reception to attend in the evening. Began writing at 9:00 pm and wrote till 1:00 am. Completed around 130 pages. Still had over 50 pages to be completed in a single night. Fatigue set in and took a 15 min nap at 11:00 pm.

Thursday, Dec 16, 2010: Began writing my assignment at 8:30 pm, and wrote straight till 2:30 am. Looked like a dead duck by now. Physical condition: Fingers close to fracture and refused to straighten up not to mention the bad backache and the darkcircles too. Handwriting was a little short of a shorthand scribble.

Friday, Dec 17, 2010 4:00 pm: Managed to successfully submit my assignment at the College. Was proud I could make it within my self-imposed deadline.

10:00 pm: Finally I hit the bed early after a hectic crazy week and was planning on an 8 hr sleep. Now came the bomb when Raj a close friend called up. He had a family emergency and requested me to take his parents to Bangalore and bring them back to Chennai all within a day and that's tomorrow. With so less sleep the whole week, I wasnt physically ready for this 700+ km one day drive, but it was something I couldn't refuse for a close friend. Made a few calls to arrange a car and confirmed the plan with Raj. Time of Sleeping: 12:20 am.

Saturday, Dec 18, 2010: 04:10 am: Woke up to my phone's alarm. Was a sleepy head after a 4 hour sleep. Got ready and left home at 4:30, and executed all my plans on time. Reached Bangalore at 12:00 noon successfully. Physical condition: Tired, dead tired.

3:30 pm: Started my travel back to Chennai. Was a race against time because I wanted to cover the most distance under daylight. Loaded myself on energy bars and a large Red-bull that gave me an alert mind all the way till Chennai.

10:30 pm: Reached home after dropping Raj and his parents at their Chennai destination covering a total distance of 748 kms and driving for 15 of the last 18 hours. Hit the bed at 11:30 pm. Now I AM a dead duck !

Sunday, Dec 19, 2010: 8:00 am: Woke up to a perfectly good Chennai winter morning feeling good that the crazy week finally ended. Later that morning rode to college for a class and planned to return home for lunch. Here's my fate, a couple of kms before home my bike skids and I fall off my bike. I scratch my hands and a big bleeding bruise on my left leg.

So how crazier can a week get. Five straight nights of less than 6 hrs sleep, fingers close to fracture point, Driving 748 kms on the sixth day and now a bruised leg on the seventh day, I didn't ask for this... !!!

Kollywood actress in a London daily

Well, not an Indian but she can be labelled as a Kollywood actress for her performance in "Madrasapattinam". Yes, that's Amy Jackson for you. I got a chance to see this movie recently, and her acting is definitely commendable.

Here's an article in a British Daily "METRO" on August 17th, 2010 publication. The newspaper has categorised Amy as a Bollywood entrant which is technically not right, but outside India, all Indian movies apparently fall under Bollywood. So all you Kollywood fanatics, please pardon this daily and enjoy this read.

(click to view the complete image)

London Diary - Chennai to London, 04 July 2010

This travel turned out to be "just another travel" between Chennai and London and I'm glad it was this way. Here's how I recount the events of my travel to London.

It was a morning flight but my day began even early. Woke at 2:45, added 5 minutes to the snoozer and finally got myself up to get ready. The cab guy arrived with no delay. Since all packing was done last night, just had to bid a bye to my folks at home. Quarter stayed overnight and came along with me to the airport.

I had a heavy hand baggage (including laptop) and was skeptical about it but the guy across the counter gazed at it and let me go. Thanks Mr. "Across the counter guy"! Nothing special about the low-grade Chennai to Muscat flight. Surprisingly, they played a tamil movie, I mean I didn't expect this from Oman Air atleast. Watched the "Tamizh Padam" and it surprised me too. Infact I found it extremely hilarious the first hour or so, then it got a little boring, so took a quick nap. Had a 4 hour transit in Muscat. Rushed out of the plane like the rest of them, only to realise that I left my copy of "The Tipping Point" in the plane itself. Cursed myself for it, cos I just had another 50 pages to complete. Dammit, will have to buy the book again. And what's this thing about people rushing out of the flight when it stops, no-one's gonna miss their next flight or their ride back home. Hope people learn to show more patience (including me).

Happened to meet a guy from my plane at the Muscat airport who was travelling to London as well. He was travelling to London to pursue his higher studies in animation. He gave up his IT  job to realise his dream in animation. Another guy from the same flight too tagged along. He was on his way to Paris to pursue a 1 year programme on International Business. Amazingly, he just knows the ABC of French and was on his way to complete a course on International Business in French. Now that's what we call "confidence". Whether it's a foolish confidence, time will unwrap.

Munched a late breakfast, bought a calling card, made a couple of calls to India, Couple of calls to UK to inform the manager and landlord about my arrival, and tried calling Ranjay countless times, but in vain. Made 2 wrong number calls to Shema and gave up. By now boarding announcements for my Muscat-London flight had begun, and we guys went along.

This time my partner was a young brit girl, guys I know you are cursing me, but then don't worry. She was too loud, I mean really loud,embarrasingly loud!! Wished her a Hi, and her reply "Hi" would have been heard ten rows behind ! Looked around if anyone did indeed hear that, all seemed busy loading their cabin baggages. Good for me. By now, I gave up the idea of striking a conversation and left me to myself . (I'm sure you guys must be gloating with a wicked grin now!). Later I noticed these Brits are generally loud people which I got used to a few days later. Ate loads of flight food, watched 3 movies during this 7 hour journey. ("500 days of Summer", "2012" and "Hurt Locker"). Surprisingly I did not take a nap in this leg at all.

The flight was 30 minutes early and went around the bright London skies for a while before landing. Immigration was peaceful with no questions. Then came the medical check-up; luckily I followed my company's travel team's suggestion to carry a chest X-Ray along with a medical report. That saved me an hour atleast. Here's a tip for all guys travelling to UK on a work permit - Carry a chest X-Ray along with a medical report saying everything's fine and the airport authorities would let you out with no fuss. The Heathrow exit I thought was little confusing with many exits, but my manager spotted me easily. He had also booked a "sardar" taxi for me. Guess what, this was a Merc and the first Merc I've travelled in my life. So here's London welcoming me with a Merc, great I love this place ! Reached home after a 15 min drive and checked my room.

Rest will follow in my first week summary. Keep reading !

10 Special songs

Here's a list of 10 special songs from my playlist. These songs are special because everytime they play on my ipod/media player, I end up replaying them countless time before moving on to the next number. The fact is, I never get tired of these songs and they'll always remain evergreen to me. Just thought will share these songs with you too:

1. Alan Parson's Project - Eye in the sky

2. Metallica - Unforgiven 2

3. Creed - Higher

4. Coldplay - Yellow

5. INXS - Beautiful girl

6. Stone Sour - Silly world

7. Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan

8. Blue October - Into the Ocean

9. Nickelback - Photograph

10.U2 - New York

(p.s.: These songs are in no particular sequence)

The mother who had no name.

Sunday, 22 Nov, 2009, Chennai.

She was always a mother since I moved into "Arumugam Oni" my Mogappair house in April'09. She was sheepishly wagging her tail the day I first saw her. Her two daughters shying away. We had no plans for the little family, but seeing us being kind to them, mother let her daughters come close to us but maintaining a distance herself. The kids seemed to grow quick and we already began making long term plans. Fate had other plans though.

The weaker among the two daughters was found dead one morning on the road in front of our house, she was hit by some vehicle in the early hours. I helplessly watched it, my sister gathered enough courage to place her away. May be we should not have let the daughters out of home, may be tying them up was a good idea. The mother seemed to move on with life, but with extra attention to the remaining daughter.

We took extra care of the only daughter, now gaining weight and height quickly. Again fate had it's own ways of unravelling its ruthlessness. The little one which otherwise would run to greet us even if we were a 100 mts away, didn't seem to turn up to my calls. She was under my car, seemed frantically scared of something. The mother knew it soon that the little one needed no help. I tried calling the daughter, but her snarls were fierce enough to scare me off. I thought the mother would have scared her off in an attempt to drive her away, but that was not the case. The daughter was out of sight the next day. I was way too happy to see it in my garden the following morning. She was just too weak to even stand. I fed her some water and milk, it managed to sip a bit but could not take more than couple of strides before falling down. Mother didn't seem to near the daughter, may be she wanted to stay away from the sickness the daughter might inflict upon her. An hour later I found the daughter dead in my front porch, but not before she put up a mighty struggle to reach the 20 meter distance. This time I took the daughter away from home. Mother was nowhere to be seen. I could hear her weeping howls every night thereafter.

The mother turned its affection on us, and we on her. She would follow my bike or car till the end of the road. She would welcome my sister and me with a song every evening when we returned home from work. A couple of month ago we realised she was pregnant, we were glad we would be getting a new set of pets and we planned to retain a couple atleast. Finally on 7th Nov 2009, mother gave birth to 4 beautiful small puppies, 2 boys and 2 girls. We ensured the mother and kids were fine in the Chennai monsoon by giving it special make-shift shelter and regular supply of food. Again fate unravelled something unexpected.

Mother hasn't eaten anything for 3 days now, and lost weight to the extent she is all bones now. She would occassionally cuddle with her kids only to walk away to the grass for sometime. She would not eat or drink anything we offer. At 4:00 pm today, she requested me to open the gate for her and I obliged. May be she didn't want to pass on her sickness to her kids, instead closing her eyes and bidding us a good-bye far away from home. She has not returned home since and it's midnight already. May be she never would. Christening her was just a formality, she was a part of our family anyway, so we never considered that. I am still willing to go out and search for her in the dark not knowing what to call her, after all she was the mother who had no name.

(Epilogue: I managed to leave the 4 puppies at Blue Cross, Chennai on 24-Nov-2009. Felt it needed some expert care for now. The mother never returned.)

The plane that crashed, well almost !

Friday, 02 Oct 2009, Chennai.

It was an early morning for my sister, aunt and me. We had booked a cab to take us to the airport to board the 7:00 a.m. Jetlite flight to Coimbatore. It was a planned weekend getaway to Valparai, a lesser known hill-station in Tamil-Nadu. The cab reached promptly at 5:00 am and we covered the Mogappair to Airport drive in about 30 min. Meanwhile, Chakri (my office colleague) and his wife who were to join us for this trip, had already arrived at the airport. Being a 3-day weekend, there was a rush at all the airport counters. Baggage check-in and security check itself took an hour. I was late enough for the Jetlite counters to announce my name, but then finally made it on time. It was an exciting journey so far for my sister, aunt and Chakri's wife, this was after-all going to be their first air-borne journey, not for Chakri and me though. Little did we know that what lay ahead was much more than a flight travel, just a tad less than a nightmare.

It was a 10 min, 1 km ride on the airport bus service to 9W 2735 Jetlite, big enough to carry 65 passengers. I always prefer travelling on the smaller CRJ-200 plane rather than the larger Boeing-737s or Airbus-330s. The small planes are perfect value for money as the pilots do not manouver them high up, giving us a glimpse of the landscape all the way till we land.

As I sat on my seat, there was a jittery feeling in me. It was weirdly strong, and I haven't felt this way in quite sometime. Telling this to the stranger sitting next to me would have been the last thing to do now. Everything was fine as the plane took off. About 10 minutes into the flight, I realised the plane was flying South of Chennai, whereas Coimbatore was on the West of Chennai. The morning sun to my left confirmed that my sense of direction was intact. I was waiting for the big right scoop the pilot would take, which eventually he did not take, and we were already into 30 minutes of our 60 minute journey.

It was now that the air-hostess and the flight steward took back the tray serving water and coffee to the passengers. We all began sensing something was not right. Right at this moment, the gentleman next to me asked me to notice that the left blades of the plane was not rotating, and to my surprise, it was indeed NOT rotating. Seeing it stationary was the last thing I want to see 8000 ft up in the sky. I could see my worst fear almost comingtrue. Me and my sister gave a nervous smile to each other, atleast it was nervous at my end. The pilot now announced the failure of the left engine and that we would be heading back to Chennai airport due to this technical snag. He assured that the plane was safe to travel with just one working engine, I was not so confident though.

The plane now took a big U-Turn and was heading north towards Chennai. There were panic hushes in the plane, the hostess and the steward did a good job of keeping the fake smile on, and confirmed this was not normal at the Jetlite service. It was a little relief when the plane flew across the Bay of Bengal, atleast now there's a possibility of landing on water. The pilot took us on a rollercoaster ride as he glided and swayed the plane all over the Bay of Bengal. At one point, the water felt real close, but we must have been atleast a couple of thousand feet in the air. Finally the runway was in our vicinity, I noticed the stranger next to me was chanting some mantras with his eyes closed. It was heavy on him mentally after his last night's flight at Malaysia had a problem with it's landing gear and the plane was forced to glide for an hour on the night sky, now it was Jetlite tormenting him. As the plane hit the ground with a thud, it was a thud of relieval and heavy breathing all over. Just as the plane came to a halt, we heard a voice arguing with the hostess asking her to let him leave the plane, the hostess politely quoting the rules and requested him to remain seated until further instructions. It was none other than the Home Minister P.Chidambaram, we all were surprised that the Home Minister himself was travelling in Jetlite. It was part of the Congress government's recent austerity drive to curb minister spending. Jetlite developing a technical snag with Home Minister onboard was indeed a perfect recipe for the hungry newsmen outside. (Check this article: http://www.mynews.in/News/Flight_with_Chidambaram_on_board_got_mid_air_technical_snag__N27075.html)

Jetlite management was quick to arrange an alternative flight by 10:00 am. This time, me and the guy in the next seat swapped places to negate the ill-luck. Surprisingly enough, this time there was no hint of the jittery feeling or anything of that sort in me. The flight glided through the clear Chennai skies deeper into Tamil-Nadu and as it reached Coimbatore it pierced through the rain clouds. It was the first time I was flying in rain. As we landed in Coimbatore, the air smelled of fresh rains. More than the rains, I was drenched with the thought of finally making it to Coimbatore after the harrowing experience not so long ago. My three day vacation had finally commenced.

If there was one thing I recollect saying to myself while the one-engined plane was gliding its way to Chennai, it was "Not this way, my end can't be this near!" And if there was one thing I learnt out of this trip, it's the fact that planes can fly with one engine too, and there's absolutely no reason to panic. Ignorance is NOT bliss when you're inside that plane a few thousand feet up in the air !

Journey with the movies

I am a very time consious person and feel guilty about wasting even a single minute, because I believe time once gone never comes back. Having a long list of interests that I'd like to pursue, catching up on movies is one among them. I am very selective about watching a movie and would only watch one if I hear good reviews about it from like minded people. I would not even think of watching it otherwise.

Watching movies as per me is a journey. Every movie is a journey of its kind, travelling with the places, time and emotions the characters travel. I hate the feeling of watching a complete movie in a theatre and come out feeling, that is 3 hours of my life wasted that I'm never going to get back. Add to it the hassle of navigating through crowded city traffic to reach the theatre, queuing up in the Parking lot, Queuing up for tickets and hours if not days of planning ! Thanks to the internet, atleast the ticket queuing is reduced.

I like watching movies in theatres primararily because the ambience provides all means of least distraction and makes sure we travel the journey the right way. Be it the travel through real-life wits of "Anbe Sivam", staying through war-times in "Saving Private Ryan", sailing in the grandeur of "Titanic", dodging bullets in "Matrix", enjoying the silliness of "Dil Chahta Hai", getting confused in the story lines of "Memento", going through blind emotions in "At First Sight" or the ever inspiring "Sea-Biscuit", every one of these movies ensure you travel with the characters and feel their emotions, be it joy or sorrow. In each of these so called good movies, as you walk out of the cinema hall, you're filled with a sense of fulfilment or sorrow or joy, pretty much the same feel the characters end up with. Kudos to the crew members who take immense creativity and effort to conceptualize and make us feel this journey.

I'm just back from "Kaminey"; its a simple story-line of twin brothers, a case of mistaken identity and how they get tangled among the Mumbai mafia. Nothing new or great about this story, but it still made me feel like I was travelling this journey with the characters and situations. The cinematography was good, you always felt like you were one of the Shahid Kapoors in the movie. The director deserves special credit for this. I think this is one of the few movies where I didn't realise it was a double role movie. I normally tend to find faults in such movies, but this one never gave me that sense. Gone are the days where dual characters would always have a thin line between them in the screen and the characters would never cross over to the other side of the frame. This is the future, a seamless one in fact.

Guess the day is not far away where cinema halls would have a 360 degree screen and the entire story unfolds all around you. Add to it, watching a film like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". You would not only be traversing Brad Pitt's life in time, but you'd be doing it in a 360 degree space as well.