To ‘Infy’nity and beyond… November 24, 2007

This is my last post for this season from United States Of Tamilnadu… future posts will follow from Republic Of Karnataka. Finally the day has come where I am about to travel a new path in life. I am exited, happy, sad, filled with expectations… its all in the game called life. We hide so we can be found, we walk away to see who will follow, we cry to see who will wipe away our tears and we let our hearts get broken to see who will come and fix it.

Orkutting there is out of question, but keep scrapping coz I will have something to do on mobile when I am bored in class. Access to blogging, gtalk and yahoo will be available only after I get my permanent employee access card which is available only a week after I join. Strange, considering we get the ICICI credit card with our salary account the same evening we join.

As you know its the worlds biggest and finest training facility with excellent infrastructure. Naah… I am not boasting, its not my own company anyway. So if any of you would like to visit the campus on saturday/sunday with family/friends, feel free to contact me in the number that will be updated in my orkut profile shortly. Here is a small video for you of the place where I would be spending the next few months.

 Take care, keep in touch.

The mystery of “Tanya” November 23, 2007

The ‘worst‘ best thing that could happen to anyone is having two important  events on the same day at the same time. We were faced with a similar situation Microsoft China conducted Mobile Development Seminar at Le Royal Meridian, Chennai and Microsoft India conducted Windows Vista Launch at Taj Coromandel.
Shard said he would accompany me if I was going to mobile coz he was more interested in that. Even I decided to go for that over vista launch coz I had already attended Vista launch for architects a week back and also I had never tasted the food at Meridian. Anyway, myself and sharad arrived at Le Meriden early morning with the wrong ticket. We had bought the ticket for Vista launch. Paid 50 rupees for each printout at the hotel and finally the event started.
The Chinese pronunciation of english was very difficult to follow and needless to say, the first session was amazingly boring. He was just reading out from the PowerPoint slides and we couldn’t even doze coz we were in the 1st row. After a while we noted that he was using the name “Tanya” quite often; atleast once in evey two sentence. The only “Tanya” we knew was the name of a female character in the game Red Alert we were playing back then. To have our piece of fun in this boring session, we came up with our own ideas.

Me: Ye bandha hamesha “Tanya” ka naam kyon le raha hai. (why is he always using the name Tanya?)
Sharad: Could be fullstop in chinese.
Me: or could be his girlfriend/wife back in China. Poor guy is missing her badly. :’(
Sharad: Could be a red alert fan himself
Me: or could mean water in Chinese. Someone give him aquafina.
Sharad: Seriously what is Tanya?
Me: Absolutely no idea.
Sharad: Try to follow what he is telling and we will figure it out
Me: ok will try.

The next line on the power point read “…..Windows mobile version 6 based on the development platform Microsoft Visual Studio .NET (read as Dot Net)”. When he arrived at that particular line, he read “….Windows mobile version 6 based on the development platfrom Microsoft Visual Studo ‘Tanya’ “. Finally the mystry was cracked. It appears dot-net is pronounced as “Tan-nyet”; ‘t’ silent.

CTS HR’s vs Microsoft Student Partner November 22, 2007

A flashback!!!

Location: RMD Engineering college
Day: Sunday

The venue is all set for Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) campus interview. Student who have arrived early at the campus are tensed, worried and preparing hard. Some gentlemen who arrive at the college gates and identify themselves as HR’s of CTS. The security sees that some of them are wearing T-Shirts and calls the management. The management strictly says that T-shirts are prohibited in RMD and RMK engineering colleges. So unless the HRs wore formal shirts, they cant enter the campus for conducting the interview. Angry they said that CTS would never come for interview in those two colleges anymore and went away.

Fast forward!!!

Location: RMD Engineering college
Day: Sunday

I arrive at the college as a representative of Microsoft to take session for their students;  there were nearly 20 of us and others were already inside.  (how I managed to reach the college is another story, will tell that sometime later)Unfortunately I was not aware of the above mentioned incident and was wearing a Microsoft T-shirt. The security stops me and enquire who I am. I show my card with says “Microsoft Student Partner” and inform him that I have come to take session. He calls the management and inform them that a guy has come from Microsoft to take session, but that he is wearing TShirt. Without any more questions, they promptly allowed me inside the campus.
Needless to say, the other 19 friends who had come to take session were wearing formal shirts coz they knew about how strict the college was! I enjoyed a good time being the centre of attraction probably because I was the first living soul to enter that campus wearing a Tshirt. :P

Brandname Microsoft always wins!!!

Why Tata Indicomm sucks… November 21, 2007

Internet has always been one of the essential things for me to survive. A day without Internet is like a day without oxygen as far as I am concerned. This is the story about a time when I moved from my home at TNagar to a home at Tambaram with my friends since my parents had got transferred. Our new home was a brand new classic flat with 76 families. It had the perfect atmosphere… swings, lawns, gardens everything. But the only problem was that the only internet provider in that locality was Tata Indicomm (originally VSNL). Finally in a week we applied for Tata Indicomm postpaid special plan according to which we were supposed to pay 4 months advance of Rs3000 and need not pay installation charge or advance for a speed of 128kbps unlimited.

Things went well for the first month. Then the problems started; there would be frequent down time. Even if we call the customer care (not a toll free number) they would take days to rectify it. We didnt have any other choice coz Airtel still didnt have coverage in that area and BSNL needed lots of formalities. There problems were bearable until the 4 months got over and the billing cycle started.

After the 5th month a guy from Tata Indicomm came to collect bill. He told us that only cheque was acceptable. All of us had a bank account without a cheque book. So he said that he will write a cheque in his account and collected the money. 6th month billing cycle came and we took a DD to pay the amount. A few days later our Internet connection went down. We called the local Tata office (the customer care was in Hyderabad and calling them was waste of money and time. They had no clue what we were talking about). We told our id and they told us that there has been a cable cut and they were rectifying it. 2 days passed and still no sign of internet. We were totally frustrated now coz most part of our mini project was based on internet. Sharad was doing IBM great mind challenge and I was creating an API for Flickr.com in Ruby. We called them up again and this time they told us that we haven’t paid the bill. We insisted that we had paid the bill and told them the DD number. They told us that they never got it. That evening we went to bank to find out. The very next day we had paid the bill, Tata had encashed it.

All of us went to a STD booth after having tea in the evening and called them up. Initially Sharad talked iwth them in english and they were shouting back in tamil the usual stories. Frustrated I grabbed the phone and yelled back in tamil. Sharad, my rommates, the water delievery guy who was running the phone booth all were awstuck looking at me talk fluently in tamil. At the end of the “conversation” I kept/slammed down the phone and told Sharad “Internet connection has been restored”. Sharad said “I didnt have any clue that you could talk tamil fluently”. I replied “Neighther did I. Plus neighther me, nor they had any idea what I was talking about” . Then came the 6th month billing cycle which we promptly paid. Few days after that internet connection again went down. This time too they kept saying cable cut story for a few days until we realised that this was once again a bill not recieved thing. This time we caught two trains and went to Tata office at Chetpet two times. Turns out the 5th month bill which was paid though Tata’s cheque had bounced and they wanted us to pay fine for the bounced cheque. How on earth were we supposed to pay fine for their cheque in the first place? Anyway the people at Chetpet turned out to have a little bit of commonsense than those at Tambaram and the whole problem was rectified.

A few weeks later news came that Airtel Broadband came to the locality. The day we took airtel connection, we called up Tata and told that we would like to discontinue their service. That was one of the memorable days for me. It felt so good telling them that we no longer needed their service. After a lot of winning about how their service was best in spite of the frequent down time, wrong billing, never caring customer care, we finally had them come and take away their equipments. Airtel broadband was one of the best experience we had ever since.

About a month later a call came from Tata Indicomm. They said that I have not paid the internet bill for the month. I told them that I had disconnected their service long back. They would always say that they would checkup and call back later. This thing continued for a next few days. It was similar to those annoying caller tune calls. They would call up at the most unexpected time. Anyway since I had all the bills and letter that I had surrendered the modem, I didnt have anything to worry about. So when they kept calling I did have my piece of fun. This was one of the last conversation we had before I left Chennai. I had their number stored in my cell and I knew it was them.

Caller: Hello is this Prathul?
Me: Yes
Caller: You have not paid the internet bill
Me: Really? how sweet
Caller: huh? (pause for 1 min wondering what to say next)
Caller: Your internet bill for this month is pending. We have cut your internet connection.
Me: I paid my bill yesterday and my internet is working fine. Thankyou
Caller: No, you internet is down for a week. Your id prathul86 right.
Me: Which Id? College id or passport id?
Caller: But sir tata indicomm didnt get any bill for this month from you.
Me: Tata Indicomm? Why should I pay Tata Indicomm when I use Airtel.
(the same ususal converstion continues. At the end…)
Caller: ok we will…
Me: …check it up right?
Caller: ya
Me: As usual…
Caller: Sorry to disturb you
Me: Oh no no. Dont be sorry. You will be calling me back tomorrow.

They didnt call back ever again. Later I left chennai and went to Madurai where my parents had got transferred to. A few weeks later they started calling again. This time the fequency of calls was high and much annoying. They would call me when I am in roaming at Hyderbad, Kerala or anywhere else. One day I was in the middle of serious and hectic business. Suddenly the phone rang.

Caller: Hello, is this Prathul.
Me: Yes. Tata Indicomm bill? You called yesterrday right.
Caller: Yes
Me: And didnt I explain that I have paid all bills and didnt I give you the bill number too?
Caller: Yes
Me: Also I gave you the DD number for all the bills I paid, didnt I?
Caller: Yes
Me: So whats the problem now?
Caller: You havent paid in the bill.
Me: Which bill?
Caller: July bill.
Me: I cancelled my internet connection in May. How do you expect me to pay July bill. I have all documents that I had cancelled you service in May. If you want you can come and have a look.
Caller: But you have to pay.
Me: (having crossed the breakdown point) Ok you know what? I havent paid your bill for the past one year. I have no interntion of paying it too. Feel free to file a case against me. Now if you call me one more time, I am going to file a case against you. Goodbye.

Havent heard from them ever since…

Long lost rambling November 20, 2007

I was browing though some of my old stuff and came across my school diary. I had done lot of ramblings and amongst them I found this long lost story and a poem. All the people who had read it so far liked it, hope you like it too.

10^th Grade

As I sat in the English class
I stared at the girl next to me
She was my so called “best friend”
I stared at her long, silky hair
And wished she was mine
But she didn’t notice me like that
And i knew it….
After class, se walked upto me and
Asked me for notes
She had missed them the day before
I handed them to her
She said “thanks” and left…
I wanted to tell her, I wanted her to know
That I don’t want to be just friends,
I love her but I’m too shy,
And I don’t know why…
The phone rang on the other end
It was her… She was in tears
Mumbling on and on about how her
love had broke her heart
She asked me to come over because
She didn’t want to be alone, so I did
As I sat next to her on the sofa,
I stared at her soft eyes, wishing she was mind
After 2 hours, one Drew Barrymore movie
And three bags of chips, She decided to go home
She looked at me, said “thanks” and left…
I wanted to tell her, I wanted her to know
That I don’t want to be just friends,
I love her but I’m too shy,
And I don’t know why…

2nd Year

One fine day she walked to my locker
“My date is sick” she said “her not gonna go well”
I didn’t have a date, and in 7th grade
We made a promise that if neighther of us had dates
We would go together “just as friends”
So we did… that night, after the party was over
I was standing at her front door step
I stared at her as she smiled at me
And stared at me with her “Crystal Eyes”
Then she said-“I had the best time, thanks” and left…
I wanted to tell her, I wanted her to know
That I don’t want to be just friends,
I love her but I’m too shy,
And I don’t know why…

Graduation
A day passed, then a week, then a month
Before I could blink, it was graduation day
I wateched her as her perfect body floated like an angel
Up on the stage to get her diploma
I wanted her to be min, but
She didn’t notice me like that, and I knew it
Before everyone went home
She came to me in her smock and hat
And cried as i hugged her
Then she lifted her head from my shoulder
And said-“you are my best friend, thanks” and left…
I wanted to tell her, I wanted her to know
That I don’t want to be just friends,
I love her but I’m too shy,
And I don’t know why…

Marriage

Now i sat in the pews of the church
That girl is getting married now
And drive off to her new life,
Married to another man,
I wanted her to be mine
But she didn’t see me like that, and I knew it…
Before she drove away,
She came to me and said “You came!”
She said “Thanks” and left

Death

Years passed, I looked down the coffin
Of a girl who used to be my “best friend”
At the service they read a diary entry
She had wrote in her hight school years
This is what it read:
“I stare at him wishing he was mine
But he doesn’t notice me like that,
And I know it, I want to tell him
 Want him to know that
I don’t want to be friends,
I love him but I’m too shy,
And I don’t know why…
I wish he would tell me that he loved me!”

…I wish I did too
I thought to myself and cried…

Do yourself a favour, Tell him/her you love them….
They woun’t be there forever…

******************************************
******************************************
******************************************
and this poem too

I lie awake at night
See things in black and white
Ive only got you in my mind
You knw you have made me blind
I lie awake and pray
That you will look my way
Ive all this singing in my heart
I knew it right from start

I used to write your name
And put it in a frame
And sometimes I think I hear you call
Right from my bedroom wall
You stay a little while
And touch me with your smile
And what can I say to make you mine
To reach out for you in time

An Intro to Hindi November 19, 2007

This is about a time when I didnt know ABCD of Hindi at Cochin. I had got admission into Kendriya Vidyalaya when I was in 4th std and hindi is one of the compulsory subjects in all KVs. My neighbour who was studying in college told my mom that she would teach me learn hindi. She would jump across the wall and come to my home every day evening to teach me. Anyway she did a very good job and in no time I found hindi easy to handle. To help me with the learning process, most of my friends were from north India coz the school was inside Southern Naval Command.

Coming to the main story, it was the unit test 1 in hindi (UT-1). We were supposed to change gender. I had noticed that changing gender was easy in hindi for most of the words. You need to change the “-cha” sound to “-chi”. For example “Bacha=Bachi”. There were totally 10 questions. I knew the first 9 very well, but got stuck at the 10th one. When it was time to submit papers I made a wild guess and submitted my paper.

Days later when the paper was being give out, I had scored 39/40. My hindi teacher called me to the front and asked me to change gender of “Raja” (king). I blinked coz that was the question for which I had made a guess. I gathered courage and told the answer I had written in front of the class- “Raji”!!!

An Unfinished Story… November 18, 2007

It was 4:30am and I decided to write a story. I felt that the post “When time stopped” didn’t capture the magic of the moment as I expected it to coz lets face it; I suck at story writing. If by any chance my dear cousin sister Meera is reading this, pardon me… but I guess I didn’t get the same writers blood as yours (I am A+ve ). Anyway to prove that I really suck at this I decided to write another one true from heart.

Disclaimer:

The characters in this story named “An Unfinished Story…” may or maynot resemble anyone living, dead or about to die of heart attack after reading this work of fiction. If you find that your part of life has been stolen and manipulated in the following story, you have the rights reserved to file a petition in Honourable Supreme Court of Antartica. I take no responsibility for any mental damage, allergy to short stories, peak use of foul language that may occur after reading the following creation. The story has been provided with a disclaimer which you are reading now and at the end of the story, dont tell me that I didnt warn you.

Reviews:

Anitha (friend): “Wonderful story, i slammed my head on the moniter so hard that my dad had to buy me a new one”

Aditi (friend): “Made me go speechless!!! I haven’t talked to him for a week now after reading this crap”

Shady (friend):“Narayanamoorthy would never know what’s coming towards his company”

Baalu (milkman): “I read the story to my cow. Its now shivering with fever and gives me icecream instead of milk everyday.”

Vijay (friend and singer): “Now i realise why my life is peaceful after he left the flat”

HOD (college): “I am very much pround to say that a student of my department has achived something that no one has ever done before. I watched his perfomance in the movie “Kabhi Intel, Kabhi AMD” hundred times and should say havent come across a better movie in my life. His role as Amitabs son was just mind blowing” (Me: What movie??? Whatever…)

  

An Unfinished Story…

by “You Know Who”

The hot sun shone through the white curtains of Rohan’s bedroom. He turned over in bed, ignoring the sun’s wake up call. Not to be ignored, it shone into a mirror standing right to his futon, reflecting a bright glare onto his sleepy eyes. Rohan had barely slept for the past five days. Rohan was confused, worried and in a dilemma. In fact this issue was driving him crazy. He was not a typical flirt who would have a crush on any other girl. He was highly matured for his age and knew exactly what to do with his life. He had it all planned… career, family, you name it… only thing he had not thought about was his love life. After all what’s there so much to think about? It happens at random and there is absolutely no predictability. But it’s not that he had not experienced any romance in life. It happened twice over years in school and college. In school an angel shot the arrow of love that went right thought his heart at a time when he knew absolutely nothing on the subject. All his knowledge those times were from the fancy movies where the heroes always had a heroine no matter what. He had to figure out the meaning of love from this relationship. And needless to say, it didn’t last long. After all final year of high school is not much time to figure things out. Having failed at it, he decided not to try it again… but within himself he was overconfident that he had mastered the art of romance and the second relationship would prove him completely wrong. The second one started almost unexpectedly in college. Initially just as friends, and slowly into a deep one. It took them few ups & downs and 3 years to figure out that it was not going anywhere. Still they tried their best coz they didn’t want to break each others heart. It was his sister’s marriage with the guy she loved that became an eye opener. All the problems at home and the issues with marriage was too much for him to handle. At one point he cursed the one who initially came up with the idea of marriage in human history. They had already figured it out that the relationship would end up back in friendship which is where is started in the first case. Finally at the end of college they went their own way into corporate life. 3 years of relationship was not easy to forget, it did take its time. And when it finally did, he decided no matter what, he is not going to have one more relationship until he gets settled in life. And as Rohan had planned, he had a handsome job offer with him and would be flying to the new city in a few days. Things were going very well until he met this girl.

He thought it would be just another  girl he meets on the internet with similar interests. But within a week he realised that this was more of that. To fall in love in a week??? Rohan was not someone who believed it love at first sight. For him love at first sight was something used in movies just because the director was not creative enough. He believed that the fancy word ‘crush’ suited best in such circumstances. But somewhere down his heart he knew it wasn’t a crush, nor was it love at first sight. It was something more fundamental than love, something more basic that had to come first before love could develop which would lay the foundation. Instinctively, intuitively he knew she was right for him. But still he couldn’t understand why this was happening to him. The girl has been in his head for the past five days. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, this is the only thing that he could think of. Even thought this was the first time it was happening to him, he was trying his best to fight it in all possible ways. But the photos of the girl he had in his mobile which he copied from her online Flickr album was not helping much. The girl was perfect for him… she had a lovely smile, jovial, humorous, mature, and had her life well planned. ‘Izumi Mizukio’ he thought, which in Japanese means, “beautiful fountain of pure water.” And it’s no wonder, for her eyes are so blue that they put the sea to shame. He had fell into her beautiful spell too quickly. But then what haunted him is the fact that he did have friends all his life who had all these qualities. He knew them very well but still didn’t have feelings for them. Then why this girl whom he had met barely a week back? What’s so special about her? Whenever the girl came to his mind he would say that this thing is going to go off in another minute, after all I am a Gemini, my mood keeps changing.  Unfortunately for him his Gemini theory didn’t work well here. The thoughts of the girl stayed and that has been the only thing in his heart for the past 5 days. He had not met her directly, he didn’t know much about her, he didn’t get much chance to speak with her, but yet the thoughts of her kept haunting her. He never chose his friends by appearance; he chose them by the beauty of their heart. Hence he was not sure whether she was beautiful or not, but from the things he knew about her so far, she was the most beautiful girl by heart he had ever known and that’s all mattered to him.

Unable to make a decision of his own, he consulted his friends. The fact is that his friends working abroad were worried seeing him online during the most unexpected hours. Luckily for him he had chosen his friends wisely and he did expect some quality suggestions. His friends loved him coz he really cared for them. If you were in trouble or needed help, Rohan was the first guy you would turn to. “You’re crazy!!! What would you call such a relation? Its just an infatuation” some tried to change his min. But Rohan always had his own reasons “Some relations in this world doesn’t have a name and this is one of them”. One of his close friend did make him feel better after about four hours of conversation. But the end of the four hours his friend said to him-”Listen to your heart”. He listened to his heart and it shouted back-”You love her”. Even his ex-girlfriend called to tell him how lucky the girl is to have found someone like him. But he was still feeling terrible about himself. He was having these wonderful thoughts all the time about the most amazing girl he had ever met and couldn’t even tell her. He had run out of time to know her better. He couldn’t decide what had to be done. “God help me! I am in love with her” he prayed and that was all he could do now.

He was moving to a new city far far away in a few days. And it’s really going to be a long time until it’s time for him to get married. Should he tell her? If he does and her response is not positive, he would lose her forever. A chance of a negative reply was definitely more… common, it’s been just a week and every girl has her own feelings. He wouldn’t definitely be heartbroken coz over the years he had become mature enough to respect his partner in a relationship. It’s no wonder that his female friends said his wife would be a lucky girl. Is this the girl he wanted to spend the rest of the life… yes he would say and for a reason unknown to him. Now if the girl says yes, then he will be gone for his job for a few years. They would be hurt badly due to this distance and he didn’t want any problem to come to her because of him. Maybe he would wait for the right time to come. He would stay in touch with her, get settled in life and when the time is ripe if she is still single… propose her. By the time even she would have settled in life plus they would have known each other well for the girl to take the best decision. Do you expect her to be single then was the question he faced from most of his friends who wanted him to express his love before he leaves. “I don’t know, if she’s the one meant for me, she’ll always be there for me” he would reply with a smile.

He spent the final days making the most of the moment. He had the feelings pressed and locked up inside his heart for rest of the days. And at the end of week he said bye to her and left to the new city with a promise to keep in touch. Will the girl ever come to know about her secret admirer? Will Rohan get his princess when his time comes after years? Is his waiting going to pay off? Even if it does, will she be single then? After all will she accept him? I really don’t know coz I am off to Mysore on 24th November to tame the wilds of digital data. Fortunately for you, they don’t pay me to write stories there. But I am sure that Rohan will keep his little secret until the apt time arrives. And maybe years later he would express his love and maybe then I would complete this story. So till then, wish me luck dear friends and do keep in touch…

The day I got “married”… November 14, 2007

31st July 2007: College days were long over. Sharad had left to Kharagpur to join his new job and I was left back with 3 of my juniors at room coz I had booked my ticket for a few days later. One fine morning I opened my gmail account to find a weird mail which read “Welcome to Shaadi.com Prathul”. Curious I opened it to find a Shaadi.com profile in my name. Someone had decided to play a prank on the prankster!!! Luckily it was created by a friend coz the profile was good enough.  It said I was 25 year old Hindu Keralite working for Infosys Technologies. Last time someone had created a profile of Sharad, he was getting marriage requests from handsome men coz the guy who created his profile had given his gender as female.  He didn’t do anything about it other than spam it and kept getting 1-2 requests each day. I wonder whether he is getting those even today.

Coming back to my story, I couldnt login to Shaadi.com coz I didnt have the password. I tried forgot password and luckily for me, the guy had used my correct date of birth. After getting a new password I changed my mobile number to something random. Next I started hunting for a way to delete the profile. But unfortunately on all matrimonial sites, you can only create profiles. To delete them, you need to mail customer relations. I left it there coz the password hunting had took a lot of time and it was already noon; hence I went for lunch. When I came back I found 4 new responses to my profile!!!  3 keralites and 1 punjabi. Two of the keralites and the punjabi was really cute, the fourth one didnt have a photo. Wonder why the punjabi decided to marry a keralite. Seeing the photos I got proposals from, I thought how nice it would have been if I was really getting married.. lols.  But then I have had enough and decided to mail the customer relations of Shaadi.com. Hence I composed the following mail and submitted through their website. Ofcourse I was outrageous for having gone though a tough time guessing my password:

=====================

Hi,
Somebody created my fake profile in your system and now I am getting lots of responses. I didnt get any username or pass to my mail and hence I couldnt delete my profile while logging in. I managed to get my password though “Fogrot Password” and thereafter logged in and deleted my mobile number.

I am 21 years old and is not considering marriage in near future. Anyway considering the responses I am getting from your system, i would consider it when time comes.

Please delete my profile and also is it possible for me to know the IP address from which the profile was created?

Suggestion:
When someone registers, send them a confirmation message to their mail id before conforming registration.

=====================

My roomates had alreay known about the issue and the news had soon spread from person to person. The news spread so fast that by the time it reached Sharad, it had lost the original story. This is an actual copy of my conversation with sharad that took place on gtalk.

 sharad: chiru bol raha hai tera engagement ho gaya??.
4:35 PM me: abe ruk saale
  yahan pe unsubscribe option nahi mil raha hai
 sharad: ruka hi to hoon. tu mat kar
4:39 PM me: faltu log hai. Unsubscribe option hi nahi hai
  tere ko aaj kal proposals nahi aa raha hai kya?
 sharad: kya proposals
 me: pahle tere ko bhi aa raha tha na?
  sharad: oh woh… ab nahi aa raha
4:51 PM me: he he
  naya idea mil gaya
  profile change to nahi kar saktha, lekin edit kar saktha hai
maclean ka email id pata hai? (Again, evil me.  I planned to change the email in my profile to Maclean’s email id so that all proposals goes to him. Btw Maclean was my prime suspect behind the whole thing.)
=====================

By evening news had spread that I got married and friends in gtalk were bombaring me with question like “How on earth did it happen?”,”Whats wrong with you?”,”Congragulations!!!”,”Really?”,”Finally!!!”,”Which unlucky girl are you getting married to?”, blah blah blah. Thank goodness, by evening Shaadi.com responded to my request and deleted my profile and send me the following mail. Click the link below to see it.

http://www.shaadi.com/customer_relations/matrimonial_help/call.php?id=1002924&temp=20070731031005

At the end of the day I had marriage proposals from 3 cute girls and also the knowledge about the best martimonial site out there to get quick responses from brides as well as customer support… Shaadi.com indeed!!!

Its Raining, Raining :D… OH NO!!! :( November 14, 2007

I miss rains ever since I moved to Tamilnadu. Rains in kerala were so common sometimes we got fed up with it. Not only the smart electricity board found it as a wonderful reason to save electricity the moment the first drop touched the ground, they were careful enough to keep the receiver of their phone away from cradle to avoid enquiry calls.

But then one year “Varuna devan” decided that people like me are taking rains for granted and decided not to give any more, at least in Palakkad. May was long over and still no sign of any rain. But to show my protest to god, I carried umbrella every day to school. (atleast my mother made me to[:(]) To reach my school KV Kanjikode,  we had to get down at the bus stop and walk a few meters down the tarred road on the left. The road was a short cut to Malampuza and we could see 4 hills one after the other as we walk towards the school. One fine morning as usual after getting down from ‘NMN bus’, myself, Karthik and Rohit was walking towards school. Suddenly Karthik let out a cry of joy:

KarthiK: LOOK!!!!! RAINNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!

We looked towards the mountain and saw it raining there. Finally god has caved in… I felt proud. [:D] The rain was dense and it was now over the 4th mountain. I could say the visibility there was absolutely zero.

Me: Look at that. You can barely see through it.
Rohit: Wow!!! Isn’t it amazing.. first rain of the year![:D]
Karthik: Look how fast its moving, its now over 3rd hill
Me: Yeah its coming towards us really fast… [:)]
Rohit:Cool… its now over the 2nd hill
Me: Hey the 1st hill is also under rain. Its coming really fast!

Suddenly Karthik panics…

Karthik: Aren’t we forgetting something?
Rohit: What?
Me: OH OH!!! GET AN UMBRELLA!!!!!!!!
Karthik: Fool you are having it…
Me: Huh? oh..ok….Damn…

Inspite of the violent struggle with the bag to get the umrealla out, by the time it opened the critical point was long over. The three of us walked drenched in the rain. (Ethayalum Nananchu, ini kulichu kayaram) We were so into seeing the beauty of rain that we didnt notice the people running around us for shelter. I imagined “Varuna Devan” up in the sky rolling on floor with laughter and we slowly walked towards the men’s room.

When time stopped November 13, 2007

This happened during my 3rd year of engineering. After getting down at Tnagar, I usually catch another bus home just a stop away coz I have a bus-pass and want to make maximum use of it. But that evening had something special in it. It was about 5:30pm in the evening and the weather was completely different form usual Chennai weather. It was dark & cloudy and looked like it would rain any moment. The breeze was blowing strong and the smell of dead leaves blowing across the road was just heavenly. Its not daily that such a beautiful evening occurs in a crowded and polluted city like Chennai. I wanted to make the best use of the moment and decided to walk back home hoping that it would rain and my long time wish of walking in rain will finally come true. I had covered almost half way and the road was amazingly quiet even at this peak hour. Maybe it was bcoz heavy vehicles were diverted due to the rush in the temple ahead.
I was walking very slowly making the most of the moment and expecting the rain to come down heavily at any instant. Suddenly a few metres ahead an auto came and stopped to the side of road. An old woman in her 50′s and a handsome tall youngman in his 25′s who looked like her son came out of the gate of a house with few bags. The woman was wearing a light brown saree and the youngman was wearing blue jeans and black tshirt. They were not speaking a word and there was an aura of sadness around him. Slowly they kept the luggage inside the auto and the young man looked back at the gate. Then I noticed a young girl about 20 years old wearing red sleeveless 3/4 and blue jeans. I could say I didn’t believe in angels until I saw her. The two of them looked amazing and were just made for each other.
He looked at her for a brief moment and then at the old woman. She looked down, let out a sigh and got into the auto. Slowly the girl moved from the gate onto the pavement and came near him. The girl was about his shoulder height and they were looking into each other eyes. For a moment it felt like everything had stopped for them… the clouds, the wind, the falling leafs… in fact I don’t exactly remember whether I was still walking towards them or standing there awestruck. The girl slowly came forward, wrapped her hand around him and he held he shoulders softly. She moved away from him clenching her lips so as not to let out a cry. It felt so bad to see their gloomy faces that I wished one of them would smile for each others sake. He looked at her again for a brief moment, got into the auto and he left. She kept watching him and tried her best to wave, but was so much overcome with emotions that she could barely lift her hand. She stood there even after he was out of sight and I walked ahead slowly. As I passed her our eyes met. Tears were streaming down her face and she was trying her best not to cry in a public place. To be true, even I was over come by emotion after watching the whole thing, but barely managed a smile and she gave back a one sided smile. As I walked home I wished, I prayed that this be the happiest couple in the world and never had to be separated again. Then suddenly it started raining as if my prayers have been answered. I looked back and she was still there… facing up the sky with her eyes closed allowing the rains to wash her tears away.