Approaching an end….

Can days fly this fast? Well I know its been some time since I blogged! But never expected or remember that my previous blog was when there was about 2 months to leave BIM.. Now, its just 19 more days to go (Thanks to Kamal’s Status message once again!) Yup.. things are approaching an end here!! 

Those memories still linger in my mind – how enthusiastic I was to get into a B School collecting info from all those possible sources 🙂 Now I’m set to bid Adieu to BIM 😦 Feeling a little nostalgic to miss out my bestest buddies that I made on this campus – raSkulls & GAPS n JUPS 🙂 🙂 Amazing guys I’ve had ample fun with you and some really nice moments to cherish… Well, we are already done with writing Nostalgia & so don’t wanna mention all those moments and how special u guys have been!

The last 1 week has been really busy for us as we were tied up with writing Nostalgia for friends.. And now its just a week before our exams commence! What more to say?

I just should mention about this “A Good Beginning has a good ending” – I’m sure that I started my life in BIM with tremendous excitement and the end of it, I’m absolutely happy for having had Best 2 years of my life 🙂 Would continue to Love BIM & my mates here… Love ya fellows!!!!

Guess its time for me to start thinking about my second innings as a Consultant!!! But how much I look forward to my new life, I got to admit that Life as a student is always Sweet 🙂 “Damn it feels Good to be a Student….” 

61 more days to go

Today when I was online on Google Talk, found Kamal’s gtalk status reading “61 days to go”.. Suddenly I realize that just 61 more days to spend in this campus.. Days just keep rolling and how would the last 2 months be? Got events coming up – Athenaeum on the 14th & 15th of Feb (An International Research Conference hosted by us); culturals include Foxtrot (Dance Night), Farewell Party (obv hosted by juniors to us) & Thanks Giving (return for Farewell) dates for these cultural events not fixed… Amidst all these, academics in the form of Midterms troubling us from the 20th to 28th of Feb 😦 Have to wait and see if SportsCom comes up with Volleyball which was supposed to be conducted in the previous trimester…. Few road trips and tours pending too… 

With lots of action filled up, I’m sure its gonna become “0 days left” soon… Gonna miss this amazing 2 years of my life for sure!

Chill out…

A nice joke shared by a faculty during one of the class room sessions!! Viewer discretion recommended 🙂

 

A man when travelling through the woods got his car punctured. He found a hut and asked the old man living in the hut to allow him stay for that night explaining his situation…

The old man said, “I understand your situation gentleman.. But there are only 2 rooms in the hut and baby’s sleeping in baby’s room, the other room is the restroom. I’m used to sleeping outside the hut.. So can you adjust in the restroom?”

The guy thought not to disurb the sleeping baby and said, “I’l adjust.. I’ll sleep in the bathroom”

The next day morning a beautiful girl woke the guy up by pouring water on him.. The guy hurriedly got up and looked at her.. He asked “Who are you?”

Girl replied “I’m Baby.. And you…..??”

The guy replied “I’m a BIG TIME FOOL”

A Goan Vacation – II

The next day (9th Jan 09) we hired 2 Eliminators and 2 Activas for the 7 of us to roam around!! Oil companies were running a state wide strike in India and it caused a sudden demand for petrol… So the first thing we were looking was to fill our bikes with enough fuel to atleast run for that day… After enquiring in so many shops, we found a house where 2 girls were selling petrol at Rs 70 a litre….. We were left with no option but to fill atleast a couple of litres!! (Petty shops selling petrol is so very common in Goa) First we went to Calangute beach which was nearby the place where we stayed!!! Had complete fun in the beach – tried water sports such as Water Scooter & Para Sailing and was a great sight to watch the crowd in the beach with almost 75% being foreigners who were taking a relaxed sun bath.. Although we planned only to spend a few hours in the beach and then move on the next location, we were so obsessed and addicted that almost the entire day was spent in the beach itself… Then resumed our drive in the bikes to Panaji, the capital city of Goa to have fun in the Goan Cruise, which sails through the Mondovi river!!! Rozy and me were so damn hungry that we just had Maggi Cup O’ as a snack before dinner… Came back to Condolim for dinner and we dined at a restaurant in the beach under candle lights!!! Was so ecstatic 🙂

Guarded for Parasailing

 

 

Sun bath @ the shacks!

 

 

 

Woke up a little late on the 10th January 2009 coz of the excess bike drive the previous day and plan for the day was to spend time in visiting places other than beaches.. Breakfast in the resort where we stayed – loaves of bread, tea, butter, jam & a juice costs 70 bucks of Indian currency 😦 😦 Started with a drive to Fort Aguada and after spending a few  hours, had a brief stop at Sinquerim beach coz of Ashwanth’s wish to go to Hotel Taj (reason can’t be divulged here) which was in Sinquerim!!! For lunch we went to Baga beach, which is just an extension of the Calangute beach!! Food was OK types – rice & fish roast costs Rs 50!!  We decided to pass the rest of the day in the Condolim beach relaxing as the foreigners do 🙂 Rented shacks for Sun Bath and spent time taking bath, playing i waters and just lying in the shacks!!! Evening we decided to spend some time shopping and dinner at a restaurant where the foreigners were involved in some gambling!! About 12 midnight, 4 of us went to “Poisson”, a famous disc nearby.. Finding it totally devoid of any crowd, we left the place.. So back to room, watched TV for sometime and fell asleep!!

Gang at Fort Aguada

 So just half a day more at Goa and then Adieu to Goa 😦 😦

A Goan Vacation – I

Penultimate trimester vacation at BIM saw us touring Goa!!! 7 of us started on the 7th of January 2009; it was indeed extremely disappointing to miss 3 from a 10 member gang… Arjun & Ramani were selected for the coveted Intaglio ‘ 09 conducted by IIM Calcutta.. These guys were in a dilemma if to join us to Goa or to make it to Intaglio as they were 1 among the top 6 teams across the country to be selected for “The Grand Finale”!! After several discussions and thoughts, they decided to skip Goa and go in search of Pride…. Chandru pulled out too due to some unfortunate circumstances and that made the gang size just to 7 😦 Nevertheless, we decided to go ahead without cancelling the plan!!!! 

Took the Jan Shatabdi Express from Trichy to Erode on 7th evening at 5.30 PM & reached Erode at 7.30 PM… Had dinner in a OK kinda restaurant which was just outside the railway station! Next train (Mangalore Express) to Mangalore at 10.45 PM and not for a long time did we stay awake coz of the night out the previous day for SM II exam… Reached Mangalore at around 9 AM on 8th and went to Stalin’s relative’s home just to refresh and get ready… The train from Mangalore to Goa was scheduled at 2.45 PM and it left us with so much of time from the moment we reached Mangalore!! So we decided to go to Ideal Ice Creams, a favourite in Mangalore for the specialty ice creams…….

Jet Set Go - Mangalore

 

 

At Ideal Ice Creams, Mangalore

After that, lunch at Kairali Restaurant and then all set to board the train to Goa!!! 2.45 PM, Matsyaganda Express from Mangalore to Madgaon started the real fun and excitement 🙂 🙂 The journey was pleasant in the evening and with 2 nice chicks in the coupe next to us!! Finished our dinner too in the train and yup we landed on Goa at 9.15 PM… Madgaon is in South Goa and we booked our stay in Sterling Resorts in Candolim, North Goa!!! So took 2 pre paid cabs to accommodate all of us and they charged about Rs 750 per cab…. Finally reached the Royal Sunshine Park Resort (Alternate location provided by Sterling Resorts) at 10.30 PM…. The first sight at Candolim was a stunner to all of us coz of ……………… 🙂

Who succeeds – Biriyani or the Faculty??

“Biriyani Effect” – Perfect to refer the post lunch classroom sessions on Sundays here @ BIM! We get nice chicken / mutton biriyani in our mess and nothing can be a better menu to provoke a fine nap in class!! And this messcom Anna is so fond of serving us with excess biriyani most of the times… Almost on all Sundays, I’ve been one of the few unluckiest souls to attend class, thanks to the different subjects I’ve chosen! Started with “BrandMan” in the 4th Trimester, then “BA & ASP” in the 5th Trim & finally now with “KM” in the last Trim! Faculties handling these papers are part time kinds and they do visit campus only during weekends especially on Sundays as they got to take Off from their chore!!! So it makes our schedule hectic on all Sundays with the same faculty giving some Business Gyaans from 8.30 AM to 8 PM (not sure if its common in other B Schools, but 1 thing to which BIMmites are so used to!!) 

Have a good non veg feast and proceed to class at 2.30! A perfect Air – Conditioned ambience would invite to a slumber world in just a couple of minutes once the class commences… This is where biriyani would try succeeding the faculty!! But these faculties also being served with the same food, probably they would be knowing the effect and they have their own unique style of taking classes such that I can never really get into a nice hibernation mode 😦 Case analysis, sudden questions pointing to someone who’s in the other world, video presentations or other student prestentations would demand a lot of attention from every student and I think its a boon to have these faculties who give us a lot of value addition!!!

So, The Biriyani despite having a good start ultimately loses out to these faculties 🙂

Upcoming blogs

Been quite a long time since I blogged! Well, I can write about a lot of things – Trip to Pondy during Bhagyaraja’s visit to India, Gerry’s weird exam practices, Goa during our vacation, link train experiences at Londa, how will life be in the last few months at BIM, the cricket tournament that’s set to commence and so many other stuff as well… Just lethargic to sit and write… Anyways, hope to write about these in the next few days before the cricket tournament commences!! 

Eventually, this becomes the first blog in 2009!! 🙂

 

2008 Formula1 Season ends!!

2nd November 2008 ended the Formula1 season for this year!! This year included 18 races starting from the Australian GP and ending with the Brazil GP!! This year was different in terms of the new regulations introduced by the FIA – A shorter Q3 qualifying session, standardized ECUs (no more traction control), gearboxes that must last four races, and a new ‘joker card’ allowing each driver one unscheduled engine change without penalty. And 2 new circuits being introduced – Valencia & Singapore (Night race)!! Ferrari had an unchanged team with the Finn Kimi Raikkonen & the Brazilian Felipe Massa while McLaren retained the Brit Lewis Hamilton but changed the Spaniard Fernando Alonso to Heikki Kovalainen, a Finn following the feud between Hamilton & Alonso in the previous season… This meant Fernando Alonso would drive for Renault with which he won the championship in 2006!! The favourites at the start of the season were undoubtedly Ferrari & McLaren although few believed Alonso would give tough competition with the Reno!!

The season started at Australia in which not many drivers completed the race as it was the first time they were driving without a traction control!! The post race video (introduced frm this season) released in the Formula1 website showed how the cars flew off without traction control.. Especially the incident involving one of the Toyotas flying and hitting the barricades (though no injury to the driver) meant teams had to rework on their technical issues… Similar incidents occurred all through the season!!

The races were won among Kimi, Lewis, Felipe & Robert Kubica; even the debutant Sebastian Vettel won a race for Toro Rosso in contrast to the former seasons which were mostly dominated by 1 or 2 drivers – this just meant that the 2008 season was really competitive and thus, the championship was undecided till the last corner of the final lap in the last race at Brazil!!! What a race it was in Brazil to decide the champioinship.. 

Before the Brazilian GP the points table read: Lewis Hamliton (94) followed by Felipe Massa (87) followed by Kimi Raikkonen and others.. So it was quite obvious that the title battle was only between Massa & Lewis!! For Massa to win the championship, he has to win the podium while Lewis has to complete behind 5th position.. So Massa demanded a bit of luck to become the first Brazilian after Ayrton Senna in 1991 to win a championship!! Massa took the pole after Satutrday’s qualifying run at his home circuit and Hamilton was 4th on the grid at the start – What a pole for Massa to ride on his championship dreams!!!

Brazilian GP: Race Day!! All Ferrari supporters to cheer up Masaa!! Massa started from the pole, his archrival Hamilton at 4th position with Jarno Trulli (Toyota) & Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) separating Massa & Hamilton…. The race started with mild showers and the saftey car was deployed just in about a minute after the race commenced as there were incidents involved in the first corner of the first lap.. Massa continued a healthy lead from the start and was consistently setting best lap times!! The race continued, dirvers went to pits and still Massa was the race leader for most of the time… Hamilton was 4th till the 68th lap! It appeared that although Massa would easily win the race, Hamilton was set for his maiden title!!! 

Lap 68 / 71: Rain interrupted again and almost all drivers went to pits to change to wet tires… Now, again there was an expectation that if Massa could leave pits very shortly and if Hamliton takes a little more time, Timo Glock & Sebastian Vettel would go past Hamilton and this would mean a 6th position finish for Hamilton – Massa would win the 2008 championship… Hamilton came out of the pits…… Yes, he was behind both Glock & Vettel occupying a 6th position!! Ferrari fans were ecstatic assuming that this would just contine for just another 2 final laps and Massa would clinch the championship!! 

Last corner, Lap 71/71: Last corner of the circuit, last 10 seconds into the race, the same positions continued!! Massa conquered the chequered flag with ease and Ferrari fans erupted in joy as Massa almost won the season, Hamilton still in the 6th position…. The Ferrari team garage was absolutely ecstatic for 10 seconds till Hamilton gave a twist to the race by going ahead Glock in the last 5 seconds to finish the race 5th!! The points table read – Lewis Hamilton: 98 points, Felipe Massa: 97 points!! The highlights video in the official F1 website later showed how emotional the Ferrai team was after seeing championship slip away to Hamilton and an engineer hitting the wall in frustration, Felipe Massa in tears and Lewis’ girlfriend going crazy after he winning the title, thereby becoming the youngest driver to be crowned World Champion!!!! Definitely a dream final race for Lewis Hamilton and was also one of the best races of the season…. That was the end of 18 races & the 2008 season!!! 

Awesome Courtallam !!

Courtallam – Famous touring spot for a Sivakasiian!! But its been more than 6 or 7 years since I went to Courtallam… Thanks to my buddies since childhood, this time around we made sure that we visited Courtallam during Diwali holidays… 6 of us – Kumar, Srinivash, Seeman, Yogesh, Ayyappan & Me went for a nice trip to this lovely place in South India that too for the first time, in a Sumo self driven by Seeman.. Before this, we have self driven to nearbly places but not for a long distance like this 🙂

To those of you who haven’t heard about Courtallam, a brief – Although it is spelt as Courtallam, the actual tamil name for this place has a pronounciation like “Kutralam”  or “Kuthalam”.. Near Tenkasi, Tirunelveli district.. Climate in Kutralam is extremely good during the full season months of June – August!! October / November is off – season generally but luckily this year, the climate was best when we went in October end.. 

Started from Sivakasi at 2:00 PM.. We stopped just after crossing Srivilliputhur at Seeman’s match factory for a short visit.. And after a few other stoppings on way, we reached Kutralam at around 5:30 PM… Booked a couple of rooms at Dalavoi House for our stay.. Dalavoi House isn’t a great place for a stay but OK kinds for a short trip with friends… The only reason for us to choose Dalavoi was the cheapest fair – Rs 200 for a double room and Rs 300 for a triple room and the best view of Main Falls from this place.. After looking at a few rooms, we decided that was just enough for us to spend the night… 

There were quite a few differences in Courtallam this time… Absolutely Zero crowd on the first day we reached, empty hotels and lodges, 95% shop remained closed being an off season, zero traffic coz of no crowd were something very different compared to what we had seen before during the peak seasons… 

Just after shedding our baggages in the hotel, we headed straight to Main Falls as this is the nearest to Dalavoi House!! Was a nice walk in the pleasant evening weather and wow the waterfall was awesome… In all there were only around 20 people in the waterfall taking bath including us… So the usual crowd or the annoying Queue setup for taking bath wasn’t there which was great!! We were there in the waterfall for about 45 minutes… 

Proceeded to Shengottai for dinner… Ayyappan, me & Seeman were desperate to have our dinner in Hotel Rahmath [better known as “Border Kadai”] at Shengottai!! Border Kadai is known for the nonveg food especially the “Naatu Kozhi”.. Hm I dont know the exact English translation for “Naatu Kozhi”, but it means the real chicken and not the Broiler variety… Having taken a nice bath, we were hungry like demons… So Border Kadai was the best choice…. After a fine dinner and chit chats till late nights, we fell asleep!!

Day 2: Woke up early as the bloody Srinivash kept pestering me without allowing me to sleep properly… Went to nearby Chai shop for morning tea and started drizzling again… Was raining the previous night too when we came back from Shengottai.. Whenever we went out for a walk, it rained!!! 

Plan for the day was to go to 5 falls, Old falls and others depending on time availability.. Enthusiastic about visiting all waterfalls, we left our room at 8.30 and proceeded to 5 falls!! 5 falls is the one I like most in Courtallam.. Its always a pleasure to take bath in 5 falls.. From 5 falls, we decided to go to Old Falls… I don’t like Old Falls much as the force of water is much high here and it feels like stones hitting your back rolling from top… But as everyone else was interested, we went there and had a nice bath here too… Being a Sunday & the next day being Diwali, the crowd was a little more than the previous day… Old Falls was on way to Ambasamudram.. From Old Falls, so we decided to go to Agasthiyar Falls which is near Ambasamudram.. Oops this plan was suggested by me as I thought the climate there would be similar to that of Courtallam, but it was pathetic.. Agasthiyar Falls was trickling with very less water and so we had wasted almost an hour in travel.. So decided to go back to Courtallam… Seeman wanted to take bath in Tiger Falls although none of us didn’t want to spend time there… But went there as Seemans was desperate.. From there, came back to Dalavoi House, parked the car and again started walking to Main Falls… As we were running short of time, we decided that would be the last visit! Came back, packed and set off to home…

Was such a great trip after more than a year with this gang… The last time our gang toured was to Pollachi, Topslip during June 2007.. Other tours we’ve been earlier includes the first tour in 2001 to our then cardamom estate near Munnar; then to Trivandrum, Kochi, Veegaland in 2002 & to Ooty in 2004!!!! This Courtallam trip was comparatively shorter than the previous ones but was a refreshing one for sure as few of our guys are now settling with dad’s businesses… Jagan missed this trip owing to some personal reasons, Anandraj missed out as he is in US now, Raghu couldn’t make it as he wanted to be at home in Trichy for Diwali… 

 

So it was Courtallam 2008.. Waiting for the next such trip… !! 🙂 🙂

Nostalgic – SLMHSS (part 3)

This is the interesting part in my school life – Class XI, Class XII… The 2 best years of my school life!!! If it was the greatness of those faculties mentioned in previous blog during my class 8, I should say we experienced a different set of faculties in Class 11 & 12!! It was a rude shock to us that the great faculties like Mr. Ramakrishnan, Mr. Jegannathan & Mrs. Vasuki were qutting their jobs when we were in 11th. Definitely, not a good news especially when 12th Board exam was just a year away and for the kind of relationship we shared with these staffs… We were disappointed to the core with the loss of such great faculties… That introduced us to a new set of recruited staffs… Mr. Umesh Kannan (Late) – Physics, Mr. Veeria Perumal (Chemistry), Mrs. Freeda (Maths) & a new staff for English too – Mrs. Bala Navamani…. Among these, I was always very special to Mrs. Bala Navamani – She was a great motivator, a source of inspiration for me…. I don’t know the reason but she treated me with extra care.. She always wanted me to top in English.. During our periodical exams, it woud be either Bharathi or Shenbaga Priya or Rajeshwari or me scoring high in English…  I had a special liking for English and she was really the biggest source of inspiration in 11th & 12th!!! I’m ever thankful to you Mam…. 

 

These staffs were good replacement for the loss that we suffered… Some extremely funny incidents with Mrs. Freeda 🙂 , Srini & Jagan always complaining that she’s being partial to Anandraj; Kumar being reprimanded severely by Mrs. D. Prema; Ayyappan’s explanation to Principal for our class behaving in proper manner, Kumar being caught by Mr. Sankara Pandian for sleeping during his class hours, Raghu being criticised always by Mrs. Deenadhayali for all the mischievous that Srini did; Seeman’s funny incident with the Chemistry mam which made him to change group from Computer Science to Commerce; Yogesh and Balaji trying to identify ******** everyday etc.. etc… What a life for 2 years man!!! Is it what we call Heaven???

 

The bonding between guys and girls was so coherent during this time… Till 10th , we’ve been fighting for silly reasons… Suddenly in 11th, we became very good friends and great companionship in 12th!! I still remember the last day of our school life when none of us wanted to go home as our Principal suddenly called us for a short meeting and declared “Study Holidays”.. Frankly speaking, we never wanted study holidays and wanted to enjoy in school till the very last day.. But study holidays meant we have to leave the school a week earlier than the actual closing date… 😦 We were there in the entrance of the school for several hours planning how we could continue our relationship and that gave birth to the idea of “Get Together” 🙂 

 

As I compose this draft, I’m feeling very much nostalgic… What a time we had in out Get Togethers??? Miss you buddies!! Now that almost all our batch girls have got married, absolutely there is no contact with a few… Miss you all.. Miss SLMHSS…