A Great Love Story

Recently on tele, I heard about a real life love story by which I was really moved. I wanted to share it with you guys.

Herman Rosenblat was 12 years old when he and his family were taken from their home in Poland and sent to a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Young Herman was forced to work shoveling bodies into a crematorium. All the while he did not know if he, too, would soon be killed. One day two years later, Herman walked up to the barbed wire fence and saw a girl on the other side. "The girl asked him, 'What are you doing in there?'" Herman replied. "Can you give me something to eat?" and she took an apple out of her jacket. "The girl fed Herman an apple every day for seven months. Then one day he told her not to come back — he was being moved to another camp. A tear came down her eyes and as Herman turned around and went back, he too started to cry knowing that he might not see her again. "Herman was shipped to Czechoslovakia. Just two hours before he was scheduled to die in the gas chambers there, Russian troops liberated the camp and Herman was set free.

Almost 15 years later, Herman was living and working in New York City. A friend set him up on a blind date with a woman named Roma Radzika. Herman was immediately drawn to her. When they began talking about their lives, Roma asked Herman where he was during World War II. "He said, 'In a concentration camp, and then she said, 'I came to a camp and I met a boy there and I gave him some apples and I sent them over the fence.'"And suddenly it hit Herman like a ton of bricks and he said to her, 'There was a boy? Was he tall?' And she said, 'Yes.' Herman continued, 'And one day he told you not to come around anymore because he's leaving? That boy was me. 'Roma and her family had moved from Poland to Germany, using forged papers to hide that they were Jewish. They lived on a farm next to Herman's camp, posing as Christians to avoid being captured. when Roma brought apples and bread for Herman, he used to say, "I'll see you tomorrow." Herman proposed her right then and there," Herman said, 'Look, I'll never let you go anymore. … Now that we're free we're going to be together forever.'"

Recently Herman and Roma celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Talk about fate and destiny. Boy, what a beautiful love story. People made for each other will be brought together by God.

India Wins Maiden A1GP Race

Yesterday Team India won the A1 GP feature race for the first time at the Zhuhai International Circuit in China, thanks to Narain Karthikeyan. Narain dude, you rock! Ever since he got into the team, I was sure something like this was sure to happen. Feel sorry for him though, that he couldn't get a seat in F1 for the 2008 season as the competition was really tough with lot of F1 big boys fighting it out amongst themselves. Don't worry Narain, you're time will come.

On Saturday, Narain set a good laptime to place himself third on the starting grid for Sunday's feature race. Narain took the lead from Team New Zealand after the 29th lap. Team India did a really good job, especially during the pit stops. After the second pit-stop the race got really exciting with Team New Zealand putting pressure on Team India, but Narain kept his nerve and brought home the car. Lets hope, this is just the start of something wonderful for Team India.

Movie Review: Hitman

I have to confess that the movie trailer of Hitman duped me into going for the movie. The movie is about an assassin (No. 47) whose sole purpose of living is to kill people. No. 47, played by Timothy Olyphant had a childhood in a facility where they were not given names but numbers instead. The kids were all taught to survive by killing and brought up with a coldheart. They all have a barcode tattooed on the back of their clean shaven heads which is clearly visible to everyone, I wonder how then are they not caught and go unnoticed in the public after all the crime they do? The movie takes place in Russia where No. 47 is after a target to be eliminated. After completing his task, he finds himself as the target. Ironically, our protagonist who has the habit of killing anyone who knows about him, spares the life a girl - just to add some sex scenes to the pointless movie. The movie actually leaves lot of questions unanswered. What else do you expect from a movie that is made from a video game. Talk about the new generation getting spoiled after playing these kinda crapy video games. If killing is action for you, then here is a good action movie for you. Clearly, not my cup of tea (I prefer coffee..).

The Good Ol' Days Of Sakleshpur Trekking

The long awaited Bangalore - Mangalore railway service starts today with the ceremonial train between the two cities being flagged off by the Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. The services had been stopped for the last 11 years mainly due to safety reasons, now the tracks have been converted from metre -gauge to broad-gauge. These tracks run through Western Ghats, one of the most picturesque locations on earth. The reopening of the tracks will be bad news for lot of trekkers/hikers who come here every year. The 56km trekking spot runs from Sakleshpur to Subrahmanya. The tracks run some 3100 feet above the sea-level, with 60 tunnels (the longest tunnel being more than half a kilometer), more than 100 bridges and some 25 waterfalls. I myself have been to Sakleshpur for 2 fascinating treks.

May 2005:

A two day trek from Sakleshpur to Subrahmanya with a group of 15 trekkers from Tejas Networks. The trek started from Sakleshpur at around 5:30am. Direction was never a problem as we had to walk along the tracks, but long walking on the sleepers could be a real pain. We stopped at an old station called Donigal at 8:30am for breakfast. The occasional rain made us to get out our rain gear, but that didn't dampen our spirits. It was just a small price we had to pay for the beautiful scenic feasts our eyes were to be treated with. The real challenge was crossing of bridges which had wooden sleepers, some of them decayed over time and slippery due to rain. The sleepers had enough gap between them for an average person to slip down and it was hard to focus as we walked because you could see the bottom of the valley some 700 meters below. We were all cautious, and had to cross these bridges slowly and carefully. One bridge in our path was called the "Killer Bridge" (for obvious reasons), had couple of its wooden sleepers missing in the middle of the bridge, so crossing it really gave us the shivers. Crossing this bridge was a balancing act of walking one foot in front of the other over a narrow truss that runs along the side of the bridge. The second challenge were the tunnels, which were long, dark and spooky. Couple of times we were attacked by low flying bats inside the tunnel. We were glad that we had got our torches for this trip. It was exciting, not knowing which one of these challenges we were going to face next, but it kept on coming one after another. We were in attack mode. We were moving into some of the most spectacular sceneries of the Ghat section, the fog and rain made it even beautiful. After lunch we met lot of other trekking groups enroute to Yedukumeri, an old station and our final halt for the day. Yedukumeri was an old railway station and had couple of old station rooms (even though they were in ruins). The trekking group that reached Yedukumeri first got these rooms. Thanks to fast guys like me, our group got both the rooms for ourselves. We cooked food for dinner and slept in our wet sleeping bags.

Day two, we had some change in plans. We were not going to Subrahmanya as we had some injured trekkers in our group after the 12 hour continous walking (over sleepers) the previous day. Going downhill was not an option as the rivers had flooded because of continous rain. We heard from a localite that there was a village on top of the mountain range nearby and there was a transport bus from there at 1pm. So we started from Yedukumeri at 6am towards the village. After walking along the tracks for almost an hour, then we started climbing the mountain. It was steep with thick vegetation, which made it even more difficult to climb. To make matters even worse, there were leeches running all over our bodies sucking the life out of our bodies. We took nearly 3 hours to climb the mountain. Finally on top, we were struggling to catch our breathe, all that turned into gasps as we saw the breath taking view of the Ghat mountain ranges around us. After another hour of walk we reached the small village on top of the mountain. The villagers were excited to see us, some invited us to their house and gave us breakfast. The villagers were really friendly, we took pictures with them. Our group raided the only shop in the village, it was like the shopkeeper had won a lottery. The 1pm bus was the only bus to that village, we prayed for the bus to come on that day, as our fate depended on it. You should have seen our faces as the Karnataka KSRTC bus pulled up at the village. Although the bus found it tough to carry us over the hill, I was glad this old rickety bus had made it to take us back into civilization.

January 2006:

Ever since the last abandoned trip to Subrahmanya, our group wanted to make another trip to Sakleshpur as we wanted to complete the trek. The Republic day holiday seemed like the nice time to take the trip. Our group had only eight guys this time but from four different companies in Bangalore. The excitement was little less this time as we already knew our challenges and the surprise factor was missing. This time we decided to start trekking from Subrahmanya back to Sakleshpur. We reached Subrahmanya Bus Stand at 5am and walked towards the railway tracks. It tooks us couple of hours to climb a mountain and finally reach the tracks. Works on the tracks had started and we could see workers everywhere. At 9am we stopped for breakfast at a small makeshift hotel made for the track workers. We trekked though lot of tunnels and over long wooden bridges as we were again treated with more and more beauty of the Western Ghats. But this time we had another challenge, there were occasionally small engine trucks running over the rails at high speeds, carrying workers and equipments from place to place. As its a single rail track route, we had to make sure that no engine cars were coming as we crossed long bridges. The afternoon sun was unusually hot, making us even more tired. We had to stop many times enroute to recharge ourselves with some energy drinks. After long hours of walking we finally reached Yedikumeri (our half way point) at 3pm only to find that the railway workers had occupied all the station rooms, forcing us to camp on the station platform. We ate and slept after the exhausting day. At 5pm an Engine car stopped at Yedikumeri Station to drop off some workers. The Engineer on board offered to drop us at Sakleshpur and we gladly accepted it. We had shorted our trip thanks to the Engineer, moreover we had already seen the rest of the trip on our last visit. Strangely it took us 2 trips to Sakleshpur, but we finally conquered this trek.

My Doggy Boy

It was some 3 years back, my mum was the one who noticed that we had a frequent visitor to our house - a dog. He was a big dog - most probably somebody's pet, who jumped over our compound wall everyday to feast on our leftovers. We didn't shoo him away but left food for him, he slowly settled at our house. He guarded our house during the night and slumbered peacefully during the day in our car porch. Thats how he became our pet dog.

Ironically we never thought of naming him, but occasionally called him Pattichan (Patti means dog in Malayalam). He seemed to respond to anything we called him. We didn't put him in our kennel or chained him - but there was some invisible bond that kept him there. I got him a collar so that when he went outside, people won't throw stones at him thinking he is a stray. He is an intelligent dog, most of time playful and always wanting me to rub his reddish-brown coat. The bond grew from there. Whenever I went out to have food from a restaurant, I would endup parceling my leftovers for him or when I visited the local bakery, i would get an extra meat puffs (his favourite) for him. Whenever I go out on my motorbike, he waits eagerly at the gate for me to come back, by listening for the sound of my motorbike. In the daytime, its is a timepass to watch him sleep hugging himself into a furball. I wonder why people say, "I work like a dog ", coz all that the dogs seem to do is sleep all day! I slowly learned that Pattichan was not that loyal, probably the reason why his previous owner left him. Nowadays even though he spends most of his time outside, I still like him and give him a good pat on his head when he comes back. However naughty he gets, whenever he sadly looks into my eyes and wags his tail, my heart just melts.

Nokia 6110 Navigator

This is the new Super Gadget slider phone from Nokia that has GPS Navigation apart from other cool features. As camera find its place in every phone in the market, GPS is the next must have feature thats going to revolutionize the mobile phone market. Nokia 6110 uses Smart2Go softare for GPS-Navigation and seems to be superior to the one used in Nokia N95. All you need to do is, input your destination and the 6110 will automatically do the complex calculation of building your route to your destination with aplomb. The most admirable is the voice navigation (comes pre-installed with various voices - male/female and some language packs), so that you don't even have to look at the phone in case you are driving and if you missed a turn, the 6110 automatically rebuilds an alternative route to your destination. Its a good phone to have, especially for those couples who argue on the car over directions.

Some of the drawbacks of this phone are that the keypads seem very hard and at times look unresponsive (but you will get used to it). There is no wireless or infrared on board the 6110 and it does not support Stereo Sound on bluetooth headsets. The slider is hard to respond (Nokia claims this an incorporated feature so that the phone doesn't accidently open, starting another function while navigating in a car) and the sales package doesn't come with a car mounting kit. Inspite of all these, I still feel its a good phone to have, but the 6110 seems to be overpriced near to $600.

Now lets look at the good sides of this phone. Its a stylish 3G phone with a sharp bright screen (QVGA with 16 million colours), sporting a GPS-functionality stand-alone key on the front panel for easy GPS access. The mirror layer for the display makes it easy to see the display even in the sun and the handset also has a light sensor to adjust the backlighting based on the light conditions. Every single 6110 user would say that this phone has a superb sound quality and the volume of the back speakers are really good. This 6110 has 2 cameras, a 2M pixel camera with a shutter (the camera can be activated by opening the shutter) in the back and a 3G camera in the front. The phone allows a microSD card memory addition facility. Some good features of the 6110 are that it has an image editor and a video clip editor. I also liked the "Active Notes" feature on this phone, which helps you to make notes for a person in your contact list and when that person calls you, the notes will appear on your screen. Cool, rite? TTS (or Text to Speech) is another cool feature on the 6110. It reads out all your sms's, although it might sound really funny at times. I would have prefered a touch-screen for easy navigation, but then thats too much to ask for. With the Christmas season around the corner, one would be tempted to get one for yourself or as a gift. Who knows, maybe this year even Santa Claus might be using a Nokia 6110 to navigate from North Pole to your house.

The Mystery of Crop Circles and Nazca Lines

I have always been fascinated by Crop Circles, the strange symmetrical patterns created by flattening of crops in farm lands. Crop Circles have been found world wide, majority of them have been sighted in UK. More than 80% of them are known to be man-made hoaxes, while the remaining seem to be totally unexplainable naturalistic or supernatural drawings. Frankly to me, most of these Crop Circles look so complex and symmetric to be made by humans. But there are people who make crop circles, surely they must be a talented lot. Some people believe Crop Circles to be made by UFO's while others believe it to made by geological anomalies. People like to believe in the supernatural when they see a phenomena that they cannot explain. In the movie "Signs", director M. Night Shayamalan did a splendid work in convincing people that Crop Circles were signs made by Aliens (or Extraterrestrials) to convey to other aliens to make an attack on Earth.

Another Mystery is the geoplyphs (lines made on the ground by removing rocks and sand) located in the Nazca Desert in Peru. These geoglyphs were believed to be created by the Nazcan Indians between 200BC and AD700. The Nazcan lines have been recognised as UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Nazcan figures are of animals, birds, insects and humans and these figures are so huge and cover hundred of metres and can only be seen as a complete figure from the air. The mystery in these drawing is that, how did the Nazcan's draw these figures without even seeing the whole image? and why did the Nazcans use the Nazcan desert as their canvas? Historians have been scratching their head for some time now, nobody has a clear idea. Some believe they drew big pictures to impress their gods so that the gods could see them from the heavens. Others believe these pictures show the direction of water in the Nazcan desert where water is scarce and then there are others who claim the figures to align to some celestial bodies. Some say that the Nazcans knew the science of flight - maybe a hot air balloon, which helped them to draw these large figures. As for me, I am confused as to how the Nascan's knew about animals and birds that didn't exist in a desert. There are lot of unanswered questions, the Nazcan mystery died with the Nazcan people. Fortunately the Nazcan lines remain to this day as the Nazcan desert doesn't receive any rainfall. As Climatic changes happen around the world and if rain were to fall in the Nazcan desert, experts say the Nazcan lines wouldn't stand a heavy downpour.

Movie Review: Jab We Met

In one word - "A superb bollywood movie". Its been a long time since I have seen a good hindi movie, but then - I don't watch that many bollywood movies. Usually I don't watch Hindi movies unless I get a "good movie to watch" certificate from my trusted friends (why waste time watching movies that have no point to it). Firstly, I had no plan to watch this movie because I'm not a big fan of both Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor (the lead actor's). Why?? I thought of both of them as total showoff's. Some years back when these actors where brought out by the media as being a love couple in real life, I thought "why not? they are a perfect match".

Last week my brother downloaded a mp3 song called "Mauja Hi Mauja" from this movie, I liked the song and it got me intrigued in "Jab We Met". Luckily, I got my chance to watch this movie today. The movie starts with a sad and disappointed rich buisnessman, Adithya (Shahid Kapoor) walking about Mumbai city pointless and without any hope. He enters a Delhi bound train and meets Geet (Kareena Kapoor) a talkative girl who is very energetic and full of love. In the middle of the night Adithya gets off the train at a random station and walks his gloomy walk, on seeing this Geet also gets off the train to persuade him to get back on the train and she herself misses the train. Adithya feels responsible and escorts Geet to her house in Punjab, where he also gets to stay as her friend. From there they runaway together to Manali to meet Geet's boyfriend. The journey with Geet brings back hope into Adithya's life and unknowingly he falls for her. The rest is for you to watch. I was captivated by the scenes from Manali and Simla. Couple of songs in the movie were also really good. I feel both Shahid and Kareena gave a good performace in this movie, one could really feel a chemistry between them (there was something original about their french kiss at the end of the movie). I liked Shahid in this movie, he is a good looking chap and a good actor. I feel bad that I judged Shahid even without seeing a single movie of his.

Red Arrows

Yesterday morning I happened to read in the newspaper that the Red Arrows were performing in the Doha Bay area. The Red Arrows are the Aerobatics team (part of British Air Force, BAF) from Britain. Some years back I had been to their airshow and this time I might have been a little negative and didn't expect their show to be much different from the previous one. Anyway I was determined to go to the bay area to see them in action.

I was a little late to start from my house. As I was driving along, out of nowhere the Red Arrows Jets blazed past right over my car. I was late! I was just 2 - 3 kms from the bay area. The crowd was huge at the bay area and there was no parking space available for me to park. The traffic on the roads had come to a standstill and luckily I found a small space to park my car and got out to see the spectacle. The stunts were awesome with last minute splits and manoeuvering. They filled the sky with smoke of the British tricolour. You could feel the crowd was enjoying it with the occasional claps and loud Wows! The formation and splits was like watching a beautiful syncro dance. I especially liked it when 2 planes made the shape of a big heart in the sky with a third plane piercing right through it like an arrow. Surely they caught our hearts. I was glad I made the decision to come and watch the Red Arrows.

kiva.org

If you have the heart of a good samaritan, then this website ( www.kiva.org ) is for you. The site takes us through the stories of people in third world countries, who need help in starting a small buisness. For as little as $25, you can choose a loan to finance and help lift someone out of poverty. The money is loaned via paypal and the kiva field agents deliver the money to the person. Most of these people just need this one shot to get out of poverty. Lenders can check on the progress of the venture via e-mail and our new buisness partner could payback the loan when he has made a considerable profit in his buisness. Once the loan is paid back you can look for someone else to help. The website claims that 99.7% of the money has been repaid. Kiva's thousands of success stories include a peanut butter stand in Uganda, carpet weavers in Afghanistan and a fruit vendor in Vietnam. I was totally bowled out by the concept of this website. Here you would be a lot happier to learn that you have trully made a difference in somebodies life.

Kimi Steals The Spotlight

Brazilian Grand Prix was the best season ending any Formula One enthusiastic could ask for. The race was expected to be a thriller with 3 drivers fighting it out for the Championship. Kimi won the race and the Championship leaving the Mc Laren team with nothing to cheer for. The whole season was shadowed by controversies between Mc Laren and Ferrari and arguments between teammates and the two leading drivers Alonso and Hamilton filled the news boards. Nobody ever thought Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonean (Iceman) had a chance to win the championship this year. He was 17 points behind the championship leader Hamilton with 2 races to end the season. But Kimi won the last 2 races to lead the points tally by a narrow lead of one point and swooping the Championship from right under the nose of Hamilton and Alonso. Moral of the Iceman story?, "Fast and 'Steady' wins the race".

Rugby: Ruf and Tuf

I had seen rugby lot of times before on the tele, but it never intrested me mainly because I hardly understood the game and at that time it looked more like an attacking sport where the teams brutally attacked each other just for the sake of getting hold of a ball.

My interest for the game started last year during the Asian Games held in Doha. I had gone to watch the rugby match at the stadium just because India was participating in the event. I didn't even know India had a rugby team until I saw the match brochure. Few minutes into the match, I slowly rolled down my Indian flag and slipped it inside my jacket because the Indians were getting massacred on the pitch by their opponents and there seemed no point in cheering India. The final score: 75 - 0. Clearly the Indian team was new to the game just like me. I was shocked to learn that our neighbours, Srilanka had a strong rugby team and they play club level rugby regularly in Srilanka. A Srilankan supporter sitting near to me was kind enough to explain to me about scrum, rugby 7, ... etc, in short the game of rugby. That is how I stumbled into the world of Rugby.

The recent Rugby World Cup 2007 in France got me more intrested into the game with some thrilling matches in the Knockout phase. The entertainment was complete when South Africa won the Final against England. Rugby is a contact sport and injuries are expected to be really bad that 6 days of rest is given for the teams between matches. Even though professional rugby players look well built to absorb the aggressive attacks and rams, most of them are injured and badly bruised. Once the match starts, its like a war out there. I have never seen women play rugby, but I learned there are lot of women who are rugby fans, maybe because they like to see hunks get aggressive and brutal. Sexy or not, I would prefer to watch this macho game from the sidelines.

Cancer Terminator

Finally scientist have come out with a breakthrough to kill cancer cells. The idea is to inject cancer patients with live genetically engineered herpes virus (NV1020). Talk about fighting evil with evil. This virus is designed to kill cancer cells and leave normal tissue unharmed. Herpes simplex virus (HSV-1 & HSV-2) cause infections in humans and sometimes stays dormant and it is a Sexually transmitted disease (STD). Hope none of these traits shows up on the injected cancer patient. Animal tests with NV1020 was effective at killing colorectal and liver cancer cells. The prognosis looks promising and surely will bring relief to lot of people.

The smart Car

Don't be deceived by the name, there is no Artificial Intelligence (AI) induced into this machine. smart simply stands for Swatch Mercedes ART, that happened when swiss watch manufacturer Swatch merged with Mercedes-Benz. Smart looks compact and simply cute, sure to make anyone fall in love with it at first sight. This two-seater is an apt car to take on your honeymoon, exactly like Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy does in the hollywood movie "Just Married". Just the right car for Indian roads. With a body length of only 2.5 metres, you are sure to find lot of parking spaces in the busiest Indian metros. It is less polluting as it uses a hybrid engine and is produced by the best (Daimler-Benz), so getting one for yourself would be a "smart" move.

La Tomatina

The first time I read about La Tomatina, I was really intrigued. In India, tomato (usually rotten) is thrown at someone to demean that person. But in the town of Bunol in Valencia - Spain, La Tomatina is a food fight festival where participants throw each other tomatoes for fun. La Tomatina can be added to the list of already crazy Spanish festivities like Bull fight and so on. In other words, La Tomatina is just like Holi festival in India - with the exception of only red being used and lot pulpier. La Tomatina started in the year 1944 and is held every year on the last wednesday of August. More than thirty thousand people from all over the world descend on Bunol for this brutal street battle of throwing over-ripen tomatoes. Secretly every human being longs (I meant me) to be part of this messy carnage, especially if you are there with your friends. More than 100 tonnes of tomato's are used for la Tomatino every year (what a waste of food). La Tomatina surely does give a new meaning to the pharse "painting the town red".

We Are The Champions

Have to say, this was one of the proudest moment in my life as an Indian. Indian cricket team stunned everyone by taking the inagural Twenty20 Cricket World Cup. Nobody expected them to even go beyond the super eight stage of the tournament, but they fought hard in every discipline of the game, rooting favourites like South Africa and Australia on their way to the dream final with arch-rivals Pakistan. India looked so young and dynamic under the leadership of their new captain M.S. Dhoni. The final was a must see match with both teams playing their best to give the spectators a nail-biting finish to the tournament. There were moments in the game when I thought Pakistan would win the game, but India won in the last minutes of the game taking all Pakistani wickets with just 4 balls to spare. Chak de India.... song filled the air and I was celebrating like any other Indian, these were moments every Indian had to savour. I had only one thing to say to our team.

Wah! Superb performance ......... Ummmaaah

Aranmula Boat Race

The Aranmula boat race takes place at Aranmula in Kerala with big crowds of spectators thronged on both sides of the great Pamba river. Lucky for me, Aranmula is hardly 6 kms away from my home and I try to be a part of this Onam event every year. More that 36 boats take part in this event and this year 30th of August was the day and I was there early and got my seat right on the river banks, couldn't ask for a better view.

These kerala style boats can be as long as 200 meters, with a huge towering tail and is most adorably called Snake Boats. Each boat belongs to a town on either side of the river. It is a team event with more than 40 rowers rowing the boat with synchronised strokes towards the finishing line. The rowing is helped by few people at the centre of the boat who sing songs to get the rowers into a synchronised rowing.

The race started and excitment started flowing as most of the races were won by the favourites. This year 2 people died during the event, a rower on one of the boats drowned as his boat capsized and a spectator also slipped into the river. Sadly none of their bodies were recovered. This year the water level was higher than usual, but it didn't seem to dampen the spirits of the rowers. The finals was won by the boat from Melukara, they had won the trophy for a 3rd time in a row.

A New Team India

I never expected to see this in my life time, but on 29th August Indian football team shocked everyone by winning an International Football Tournament. It was the finals of the ONGC Nehru Cup, Indians were clearly the underdogs but finished off a thrilling match against Syria with a 1 - 0 score to take the cup for the first time thanks to a stunning powershot goal from N.P. Pradeep. Indians looked like a spirited team in their new Nike sponsered sapphire blue jersey.

India under their new coach, Bob Houghton looked like a superb side during the tournament, losing only one match against Syria (2 - 3) in the qualifying round. But they surely did give the Syrians the boot in the finals.

I surely hope this is only a start and there's more promising stuff to come in the future. Always dreamed to see India play in the World Cup in my life time. Looks like that day is even closer than I thought.

Say No To Plastics

My heart aches whenever I travel by train in Kerala and see the pile of garbage on both sides of the track. 95% of this garbage consists of plastics. Its like people have become so selfish and don't care about the future or the next generations that they just dump their garbage whereever possible. Few days back, the government of kerala was thinking about curbing the use of plastics by imposing fine and imprisonment upto 6 months for anyone using plastics. Its a good move, but laws won't change much - the life style and thinking of the people will also have to be change.

The present opposition leader of Kerala, Oommen Chandy has a personal website. Recently I took the liberty of putting forward some simple suggestions to the former Chief Minister of Kerala through his website. Well, these were my suggestions

* Proper garbage disposal to be taught to kids in every school.

* Every shop to keep a Garbage bin outside their shop.

* Hotels, Hospitals and Big organizations should be told to dump their waste at an alloted place.

* Every district should have a garbage recycling unit.

* Privatisation of Garbage collection and Recycling.

Hope he reads it and implements some of them when he comes to power.

Athirapally And Vazhachal Waterfalls

I had always wanted to go to Athirapally Waterfalls and last week I got my chance thanks to a site trip planned by my old collegues, a day before my friend Murali's marriage.

Around 13 of my bangalore collegues and friends had arrived at Trissur a day ahead for Murali's marriage. Since Athirapally and Vazhachal waterfalls were near to Trissur the site trip was planned. I had joined the group enroute at Chalakudy and we were off. Athirapally is 32 kms from Chalakudy and the road leading to Athirapally was superb to drive with snake like curves and greenery on both sides. I wished I had got my motorbike for this trip. Around 4 - 6 kms before reaching Athirapally, we were greeted by the breath-taking scenery of the waterfalls with the western ghat mountains in the background. After taking few photographs were off to get a closer view. We reached Athirapally waterfalls, the closer view was even more stunning. It was the biggest waterfalls I had ever seen. I joined some of my friends down hill to see the bottom of the waterfalls. The enormity of the waterfalls could be admired from here. There were hardly people here, the air was covered in mist and visibility was hindered to take much photographs. We were all completely wet, it was just like someone spraying us with water sprayer.

After enjoying some fun time there we next moved to Vazhachal waterfalls which was 4kms from Athirapally. It was little spooky travelling on the road through the forest with only some monkeys to be seen around. Vazhachal waterfalls was not as breath-taking as Athirapally, but was really raging with a picturesque beauty.

Onam Is Here

Another year and Onam is finally here!! Onam is the festival of Keralites. It is celebrated regardless of religion, caste or creed by everyone. It is the time of year when the sun comes out for the harvest season and the air is filled with the sweet aroma of flowers and banana chips.

Mythology has it that Kerala was once ruled by the great ruler called Mahabali. His reign brought prosperous and peaceful times to his kingdom. The gods were envious of his success that they send Vamanan to kill him. For centuries keralites believe that King Mahabali visits his loyal citizens and to see the prosperity in the land during the time of Onam. Traditionally Keralites welcome their king by making an Athapoo (design of flowers on the ground) and by eating vegetarian food on banana leaf.

The season of Onam brings lot of traditional Kerala events like Pulikali, Maram Adi, Snake Boat Race, Athapoo, ..... etc. Pulikali is a tiger dance where people paint themselves in yellow and dance around like tigers. Maram Adi is an Ox race (mentioned in my previous blog). Snake Boat race is a trilling boat race where lot to people row on a long boat. Onam is famous for the Onam Sadya (lunch), which is lunch served on a large banana leaves with lot of colourful side curries. Banana chips is a famous snack during Onam. Ladies wear white sarees and Men wear white Mundu (or dhoti). Ladies dance around a lamp which is symbolic to Onam.

On this day, with my stomach filled with banana chips, I would like to wish all my Keralite friends "A very happy and prosperous Onam".

Maram Adi

Wondering what a Maram Adi is?? Well, it is an Ox Race which is part of Kerala's tradition as well as an entertaining sport. Usually the event is held in a paddy field filled almost knee high with muddy murky water. An ox pair runs from one end of the field to the other end through the muddy water, they are driven by two people standing on an attached wood with their hands firmly holding the cattles nose ropes. Rules differ from place to place - in some places 2 pairs of ox race against each other while at some other places the ox race winner is decided based on time.

Every year on August 15th (Indian Independence Day), Anandapally near Adoor in Kerala gets ready for the local Maram Adi competition. Fortunately this year I was around and thought, why don't I catch some live action? This is the second time that I am been to Anandapally for this Maram Adi event. I reached there in the afternoon when the sun was right over our heads. I had brought my digital camera to capture some exceptional shots of the race. This time I had made a risky decision to stand at the finishing line to get some better photos, it was so risky that sometimes an uncontrollable ox with large horns might run into the watching crowd. During the race couple of times the ox did run into the crowd, and it became even more exciting to see people running for their life with an ox right behind them. Luckily no one got hurt. When each race starts, every single spectator gets on their toes to flee if needed. Its like a loose canon, never know when it might come straight at you. Race after race, the excitement gradually grew as I stood firmly at the finishing line with my camera focused on the raging beasts. At the end of the day by God's grace I came out in one single piece, with some stunning pictures and some thrilling moments to treasure all my life.

Happy Independence Day

Yesterday was a joyous occasion for all Indians as Independent India celebrated her 60th year of Independence. The achievements my motherland has made in the past 60 years is commendable.

Mother India, I am really proud to be your child. God has blessed you with natural beauty, human strength, Intellectual power, envious unity among all diversity and Freedom. May God bless you even more abundantly and give you a prosperous future to be a world power in the near future.

Jai Hind!!

Little Things With Great Love

She was most lovingly called the "Saint of the Gutters". Yes, I am talking about Mother Teresa. She was a giver, who gave all she had for the poor and helpless people of Calcutta. She dedicated her life to give unbounded love to the neglected and the down trodden people of the society. Truly a saint of the modern era.

Already some tv channels have started showing programs on Princess Diana, as her 10th death anniversary is fast approaching. The question is, how many of us remember that the 10th death annivesary of Mother Teresa is also coming very soon? We tend to remember the powerful and influential people for ages to come, I guess thats human nature. Nobody would remember a poor person like Mother Teresa who cared for the well being of thousands of outcasts. Surely the people of Calcutta (now Kolkata) will remember their own saint with love.

Last week while visiting a local hospital, my eyes caught a board on a doctor's door, which read:

"We can't do great things in this life.....

We can only do little things with great love"

- Mother Teresa

We do one good deed in life, brag about it and claim we are entitled to Heaven. But our deeds are like old rags in God's eyes (as one of my friend rightfully said it). There is a lot we can learn from Mother Teresa. The world is filled with oppurtunity to do good deeds to our fellow humans. The question is how many of us care for our fellow humans to help them in their times of need?? Most of the time we question God, as to why there are so many people who are poor and suffering in this world and why there is so much unequality? But the answer is in ourselves, if we help these poor and the needy and do "little things with great love", the gap is filled and all humans will become equal.

Go Sania, Go.....

Sania Mirza is one of the most successful Indian tennis player of all times. Today she gave a shocking defeat to former world number one, Martina Hingis at the East West Bank Classic Tennis Tournament in Los Angeles. Currently in the WTA top 30 ranking, Sania is on fire - shocking people as she moves from one US city to the next. She has already defeated 5 of the top ranked 20.

During the last Asian Games held in Doha, I got my oppurtunity to see this 20 year old teenager in action. I was in the crowd mostly everyday to cheer her to victory. As she reached the finals she kept the Indian flag flying high for all proud Indians to savour. Her baseline back hand shots are world class, but as I see it - her biggest problem is that she is not consistent. If she could work on that, she could probably find herself in the top 10 very soon.

What is most admirable is the fact that she is a Muslim gal (maybe the only one in international tennis) who has defied all odds to be a world star. Even though there is a fraction of Muslim fanatics who are raising voices against her wearing sports attires that scarcely covers her body, she continues to play her normal game. Sania is a normal Hydrebadi girl who is very fond of Hydrebadi Biriyani (probably her biggest weakness). She even brings her mother along with her for every tournament, so that she can have homemade Biriyani before every match. Keep playing your best Sania and we will always be there to support you.

GOD curses his OWN COUNTRY

"Welcome to Kerala, God's Own Country"
a sign board on the side of a busy highway in kerala welcomes all tourists coming to the state. But what's happening deep inside this country can only be attributed to Devil himself. For the past 2 to 3 months, people in central kerala have been living in constant fear for their life as an epidemic is slowly streching its arms. Hospitals are full with patients suffering from Chikungunya, Yellow fever, Dengue fever....., God knows what all. Atleast 10 to 20 people die everyday b'cos of Chikungunya alone. Lately the obituary column in local newspaper runs in pages. As my mom puts it, .....this is just like Bibilical times, God's wrath is upon the people.

The primary reason for fear among people is Chikungunya, a viral fever spread by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes (Tiger mosquitoes). People suffering from this complain of itchy skin rashes, joint pains, joint swelling, headaches, fever and even slight photophobia. The old and the weak are likely to die within days of catching this fever. The virus seemed to have suffered a mutation and therefore the symptoms can vary from patient to patient. There are no cures for Chikungunya and no vaccine available for its prevention.

The latest victim was my uncle, who passed away last friday. He was a good man but Chikungunya got him at the age of 63. May his soul rest in peace. As monsoon rains lash kerala on a daily basis and mosquitoes find it easy to breed in the continous availability of stagnent water, Chikunguya cases are on the rise. There is nothing much the government or the WHO (World Health Organisation) can do to solve this problem. Just hope and pray that God himself will come down to save his people.

Wah Taj!!

Really felt proud today, because Taj Mahal got voted as one of 7 New Wonders of the World. It trully deserved to be in the top 7. Taj Mahal stood first out of the total 100 million votes. I myself voted for Taj Mahal from 5 different email ID's to make sure it came on top of the other 20 sites :P

Build by the great Mughal Emporer Shah Jahan as a symbol of love for his beloved wife Mumtaz, it still stands to this very day in Agra. If Mumtaz was still here today, she would be one proud lady. I wish I could build some monument for my wife (thats after I get married :P ), that will stand the test of time to show my everlasting love :) But still I don't think I can top Taj, the symbol of love.


Talking about the Symbol of love, the first thing that races to my mind is the Cross, on which Jesus Christ died. It is the symbol of God's love for the whole world. Cross was once a symbol of shame and humiliation, but after Jesus gave his life for us, it got transformed into a symbol of everlasting Love.


Even though I am a proud Indian, I still havn't been to the Taj Mahal. Hope I would one day get my chance to go to Agra and savour its beauty and stand in awe of the Love the Taj Mahal brings out in its countrymen towards India.

Movie Review: Die Hard 4.0

Its been more that one month since my last movie. Seems like I am not getting much time to go for a movie :( To break my movie drought, what better movie to watch than Die Hard? I wanted to go for this movie the moment I saw its trailer on tv.

The Movie poster around Cochin City read Die Hard 4.0. Whats with 4.0?, sounded more like software version number. Hope they are not planning to come out with Die Hard 4.1 (10 points to me for noticing this minute detail :P Kudos! hehe).

I really like Bruce Willis as an action hero, he is serious, well built with rugged looks and most of all, an inspiration to all the bald men out there that u don't need to have hair on your head to be a hollywood superstar :P So When he is in an action movie, you have to see it. I guess old habits "die hard" :D

Now about the movie, its action all the way from the word GO. The stunts in the movie are awesome. There is one scene in the movie where cars are allowed in from both sides of a tunnel and a big head on collision results when cars go on crashing and flying around in the tunnel. The scene was so intense that, when Bruce Willis and the hacking kid manages to get out of the big pile up, the crowd in the movie hall clapped in awe of the scene. The movie even introduces the latest F-35 Fighter plane, which can also hover like a helicopter.

The villian in the movie acted by Timothy Olyphant dosen't look much like a bad guy, but surely your heart won't go out for him because of the havoc he creates to the society by hacking into the US Government Servers and distrupting all social services to the country. Its Bruce Willis who comes to save his country (atleast this time he is not saving the world like in Armagedon, hehe...).

My Verdict: 10 points to the movie and Kudos to the director, Len Wiseman for bringing out this awesome action thriller. A must see movie (best to watch in a movie theatre) for all action lovers.

Mary Of Hope

Another day of travelling, this time on a bus. I happened to see a photo of Mary (mother of Jesus), on the back of an overtaking private transport bus. She looked so calm, elegant and divine in the photo. Something you expect every women around you to be.

It made me think, she could have been like any other common lady during her time. But she was chosen for this great role (to bear the Messiah). God might have seen the fulfilment of the prophecies through her. When the angel told her that she was going to bear the child, she was not scared of the Jewish community that could stone her for having a baby without a husband. She had faith in God that he wouldn't let her down and gave herself for the will of God. Its because of this, she is now a Mother figure for the whole world.

She reminded me of a great truth,

"If you have faith in God and obey him, he will never let you down."

Ting Tong, Last & Final Call for all Bikers.....

Kerala Govt. today made it compulsory for all 2-wheel riders to wear a helmet or else get a fine of Rs. 100/-. One of the superb moves made by the Kerala govt. in a long long... time, frankly this law should have been implemented long time back, it would have saved lot of precious lives.

Kerala boasts of being 100% in literacy, but when it comes to safety they are way behind other states. Its hard to find people who wear seatbelts or a helmets in kerala. The logical reason they give for not doing so can be funny for a person with rational thinking. Most people here think that, in case of an accident - if you are wearing a seat belt you will be stuck in the crashed car, lose blood and die eventually before people can get you out and if you are not wearing a seat belt there is a likely chance that you can get thrown off from car and be saved. What they dont realize is that the chance of a person being thrown off from a car in case of a head-on collision is 1% and wearing a seatbelt can save the head from major injuries even from a moderate impact crash. Majority of keralites see helmet as a burden to carry around, a reason for early baldness. Maybe true, for big time hair loss to happen in humid kerala, trust me - losing some hair and going bald is better that losing ur life in an accident. Guys you would be even happy to learn that there are gals out there who love bald men :D So cheer up.

I hope slowly kerala would change its attitude and put safety first. Talking about the new law, looks more like Kerala govt following suit of Tamilnadu, anyway will have to wait and see, how long the law will stand the test of time and public opinion in Kerala :D

Patience Has Its Rewards

Yesterday's Formula One race at Montreal, Canada was spectacular to watch from start to the chequered flag. It kept on getting exciting as the race progressed. The Safety Car had to come out 5 times bcoz of accidents, Massa and Fischella both got black flagged (disqualified) and Kubica met with the worst accident imaginable - luckily he escaped with only a broken leg. At the end of the race there were only 12 cars left on the track. The final winner of the Montreal Grand Prix Race was Lewis Hamilton, a 22 year old kid, his first win in his debut season.

The one who inspired me the most was the third place winner, Alexander Wurz. This Austrian dude had been sidelined for the past 7 years as a test driver for different F1 teams. He hung in there till he finally got selected as the 2007 driver for Williams team. Yesterday his one pit-stop strategy worked and he was able to finish third. I guess if you believe in yourself and be patient for some time, the rewards will come to you :)

Born To Kill

No, not James Bond, I am talking about Beautiful ladies, dressed to kill poor innocent gentlemen like myself :P I mean literally...

I have lost count of the number of times I could have met with a road accident just because my eyes caught a beautiful girl on the side of the road. Most of the time it happens when I am riding my bike. If it were not for God's Good Grace I would have been a poster on the back of some big transport bus.

Today morning I had one of those close calls. My train had reached Ernakulam at 10am. I was walking towards the Bus Stop which is a kilometer away from the railway station. Suddenly a beautiful girl came out of nowhere and was walking in front of me. I was totally engrossed in her and checking her out as I walked behind her. After walking some 100 meters I realized that I had lost her in the crowd and was searching for her. What I didn't realize was that I was in the middle of a road trying to cross it. If it were not for a stranger dude who pulled me back by tugging on my backpack, I would have been hit by a speeding bike and could have resulted in serious injury. That was close.... Phew! (thanks dude whereever you are). I did find the girl on the side of the road waiting to cross and looking at me (probably wondering, what is the problem with this guy). I felt stupid and walked away, hoping to see her some other day.

Thats not over, in the afternoon the private bus that I was travelling would have ran over 2 teenage boys riding a scooter, by some luck missed them by a whisker. The reason, the driver was driving at high speeds just to impress some girls sitting in the front seat of the bus.

There will always be some guy trying to impress some girl or there would be others (like me) who would just be drooling over beautiful gals that they see. What is the point?? Sometimes I wonder why God made them so beautiful? Is it to distract us or for us guys to get some motivation or to admire Gods creativity through them?

These beautiful girls do enjoy the fact that they can get people to look at them. Its like they play with your heart, tear it into very very small fine pieces and with disgust hold them one by one and blow it into the North Wind. Sometimes I feel their beauty is all a snare into some deception. Each morning they stand in front of the mirror, looking good just to catch their next prey. When are all these beautiful girls going to realize that, "We guys are also people with feelings, maybe easily lured by beauty. give us a break, let us live"

Road Trip: on NH47 towards Trivandrum

Most of you guys might be wondering, What is the big deal in this? For me it was something BIG, it was my first time driving more than 200kms on a single day. Its just one more feat that can be added to the long list of "things done by Jenny in his lifetime" :)

It was Sunday, I got up at 2:15am. My friends would know that this is a really odd time for Jenny to wake up :P (during my college days this was the time I usually went to sleep). My mom was coming at Trivandrum airport on the 8:00am Qatar Airways flight from Doha. Usually I take the bus or train to travel long distances, but this time I had decided to take my car to pick her up from the Airport. I left from my house at 3am and headed towards Kayamkulam which was 45kms from my house.

But that day my main worry was if I would fall asleep at the wheel during the long night journey especially since I didn't have anyone to talk to. Vibrant Hindi songs kept me company and the occasional showers kept my spirits high. Even though the road leading to Kayamkulam were narrow, they were superb rubberised roads to drive your car on. I reached Kayamkulam and headed southwards on National Highway 47 (NH 47) towards Trivandrum (100kms from Kayamkulam). As there was very less traffic on the road, I stepped on the gas and for most part of the journery I cruised at 80kms/hr. I stopped at Karunagapally to have tea from a road side vendor. From there onwards the journey was uneventful except for me frequently overtaking big trucks on the road. Finally I reached Trivandrum at 5:35am way ahead of time. I parked my car near the Sangumugham Beach near the airport and spend couple of hours there looking at the sea and the sky.

I was at the airport arrival terminal by 8am waiting for my mom to come out. She was out at 8:45am and I was really happy to see her. Loaded all luggage in the car and we started off back home. The Indian road traffic did scare her initially, but she got used to it in an hours time. The music in the car automatically changed to Malayalam as my mom is not a big fan of Hindi and English songs. We didn't stop anywhere, not even for breakfast as my mom is not fond of hotel/restaurant food :( The return leg took nearly 3 and a half hours coz of the traffic at various places on the road. Anyway we managed to reach home at 12:00pm. It was one challenge successfully completed.

Movie Review: Night At The Museum (Eng)

Nice movie to take your kids to (thats if you have them :P ). Don't worry, its equally entertaining for an adult also. It was made by the producers of Jumangi, so if you liked the movie Jumangi then you are most likely going to enjoy this one also.

Ben Stiller was his usual self, just like in all his comedy movies - he was the one at the receiving end of all the troubles. This time as a NIGHT guard AT THE MUSEUM, where all the things kept for display in the museum comes to life every mid-night. I have to say that the animation in the movie is awesome. I was almost knocked off from my seat when the Lion (at the safari section of Museum) pounced on the Gate ( I guess that had more to do with the DTS of the theatre hall :P ).

I really liked the Red Indian Girl called Sacajawea (played by Mizuo Peck who is half Japanese). She didn't have much acting to do in this movie, but her beauty was so simple and I was on the lookout for her throughout the movie.

Ben Stiller who plays Larry Daley in the movie had enough of his job the very first day itself and wanted to quit. But he kept coming every night for his job, trying to improve every night the rapport between him and the display creatures that comes to life. He never gave up and finally gained favour of the these creatures and saves the museum from some thieves. Moral: "People who persist and move towards a goal, suceed in what they do" :)

Kids Choo Sweet

Daily I travel by train, spending more than 5 hours travelling to and fro between Ernakulam and my home. Yeh, 5 hours!!! it can get really boring at times. When I board a train, there are two things I look for, Good looking Girls :P and Small Children and try to get a seat near them. Why small kids?? b'coz they are very cute to watch, especially when they are little naughty and to see their expressions and innocent behaviour. You can watch them for hours and time just flies by. A child is so innocent and not yet polluted by the world. When a child smiles at you, you know its comes from the heart. :)

Today I got lucky to sit near a small boy (maybe 4 years old) on my way back from Ernakulam. He was one spoiled brat, he was kicking everyone around him (even kicking and hitting his Grandpa), spilling water and not listening to his parents. There maybe people out there who think, even that is cute. Well I don't. Anyway once he became pushy, aggressive and his cries became a disturbance to people in the train compartment - his cuteness slowly faded away. When he became uncontrollable, I wondered if his parents failed their duty as a parent.

I believe parents are only temporary keepers of their child (They belong to God in the first place). Their duty is to guide their child in the right path and to teach him/her what is right so that he/she becomes a respectable human being. Also to be childs understanding friend and counsellor when the kid is a teenager. Once the child is old enough and set free into the world, the parent has done thier duty to God. Even discipling your child is part of that guidance to make him a good person, the child might cry when he is punished, but he will always thankyou for that guidance when he becomes an adult. I have heard parents say, kids needs to be smart to survive in the mordern world. These parents are just confused between smartness and street smartness, no wonder thier child turns out to be a bully. We need good citizens, not Criminals and Bullies.

Indeed, a parent moulds a childs character. There is a famous saying in kerala which I like.
"A Seed can be kept in your lap, but if it becomes a tree...... there is nothing much you can do"

Our Trip to Kumarakam

It was a Sunday morning, we started off from my house at 7am. Some 3 friends from Honeywell, Bangalore were here in Kerala for my friends marriage and I was the person incharge to take them around. I had planned to take them to Kumarakam, some 50kms from my house.

It was a beautiful Kerala morning, even I was excited about the trip coz this was my first to Kumarakam. I have heard lots about it - today was my day to experience it :) Nice Hindi songs played on the car audio system as we sped along toward Tiruvalla. After Tiruvalla I had to stop at lot of Hotels & Restaurants along the MC Road coz the crowd wanted to have the popular kerala breakfast of Appam or Puttu (steamcake). Finally we found a place at Chingavam which served Appam. With everyone having their stomach's full to heart's content we again moved towards Kottayam.

We took a left turn from Bakery Junction, Kottayam. The road got narrower but the beauty on both sides of the road was superb. We stopped many times by the side of the road to take some awesome snaps.

Finally we reached Kumarakam at 9:45am. Parked our car in front of the KTDC Hotel and went in search of a boat. Actually the Boat owners came in search of us. The small boats costed Rs350 per hour, the Big boat cost Rs8000 per day (The big boats have 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, Air Conditioner, Flat screen tv...). Well, ours was a small boat and had space to house some 8 people. We booked for a 3 hour boat ride coz that was all the time we had.

Our boat ride started at 10am. There were lot of beautiful boats by the side of the river. 10 min into the ride we docked by the side of a thick forest. We were entering into Kumarakam Bird Sanctuary. Our Boat driver took us into the bird sancutary showing us where to look for birds. It seems we were a little late, we could have had a better chance of seeing lot of birds if we had come as early at 7:30 am (boat rides start at 7am). Anyway we were able to see the White crane and the black egret (Nir Kaka). We had time to pose for some more snaps before we boarded back on our comfy boat.

Our boat was venturing into the Vembanad Lake. The scenes on both sides of the lake was awesome. I already started getting ideas about spending my honeymoon here :P The climate was cool and cloudy with light breeze. We felt like floating in heaven. One guy in our pack commented "You are really lucky dude to have born here in Kerala". True, I thanked God, the sights were awesome and I never took time to admire it. I was really lucky after all :)

The light drizzle half way through our journey added to more excitement. There were even guys who wanted to dance on the boat. Thank God he didn't, otherwise he could have overturned the boat. The Vembanad lake was huge with lot of beautiful sights, really don't want to cheapen it by putting it into words. One side of the lake was Allapuzha, another awesome place to go to. There were Chinese fishing nets by the side of the lake, introduced by Chinese Traders many many centuries back. We could have spent the whole day there itself, but sadly our boat ride got over and we were back at the Boat Jetty at sharp 1pm. We had our lunch at KTDC hotel by the lake side.

Then our group had to split as some friends had to go to Ernakulam to catch a bus back to Bangalore. We all had a really nice time at Kumarakam and I am sure this is one beautiful memory that can never be erased.

I didn't say my goodbye's to Kumarakam, as I was sure that I would be back very soon :)

My Best Friend Gets Married

He had been planning this for months, and finally last saturday my friend got married. I am really happy for him. He had struggled a lot for the past few months to get his love relation approved by both parties, finally he came out triumphant. Seriously I think only people like him should start love relationships, people who can stick to the very end and not subdued by any hurdles life throws at them.

I have been around him for the past one week before his marriage going out with him for shopping and stuff. His planning and preparation did really scare me.... not that it was bad but everything was thought of in advance. It scared me coz I havn't even thought about all of these stuff. Can you believe it, he even had an excel sheet allotting money for each and every minute detail of the marriage ceremony.

Naturally during the marriage, lot of people raised the question... "When are you getting married??". That question was expected coz the groom himself was 2 years younger than me. Then others had questions like, "Have you already selected a gal?" or "Do you have a love relationship like ur friend or are you waiting for a gal". I didn't know what to answer, it is actually non of the above. Its just that I havn't felt settled in life to get married :( atleast not yet!! I believe marriage has a time to happen and at that time everything in your life will be working towards that.

I not sure when, But surely that day will come :) Until then I am open to all gals :P

You have a Choice.....

Yesterday I got a chance to watch the movie, Spiderman 3 in the theatre.

It is an awesome movie (should mention that you have to see it as a comic), especially if you are a kid at heart (like me :P ). Spiderman is one comic Super Hero everyone likes, mainly coz you can relate to him.

In this movie Spiderman sees his darker side (he has a black suit to put on when he is in that mood), when an outer space mutation takes him as its host, Everybody has a bad side somewhere hidden inside in some corner of our body and it is brought out when that person is under pressure.

This movie has a really simple message: Spiderman says, "We always have a choice". It is upto us to choose the path, be it good or bad.

I am sure everyone remembers the message from the first Spiderman movie, "With Great Power comes great responsibility". Guys our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman is back with a mission and I believe, "One man can make a difference in this world".

My First Blog

I have always wanted to have a blog of my own, finally I am writing my first blog and I am really excited. I am not placing any guarantees or promises that I will write everyday, but atleast once in a week to mention anything new in my usually uneventful life.

If you are wondering, what's with my Blog caption "LoveMyLife"? Don't worry, I am not some rich spoilt kid with everything in life. I am just a normal guy who has his share of ups and downs. I believe its coz of my downs that I am able to cherish my up's. Even if its all down's I would still "Love My Life".